Butterflies Returning
29 March to 9 April
Roger Frost teaches at Murchison Area School. He applied for a teaching fellowship from the Royal Society of NZ and was awarded that. He spent a year working with Landcare looking at the distribution of NZ native butterflies such as the Copper.
He walked what are called transects - lines across country noting the environment and numbers of each species as he went. This produces a distribution map for the species. The purpose of the work amongst other things is to encourage people to be more aware of the smaller NZ species and the habitats that they enjoy.
For example we know that the Red Admiral and the Yellow Admiral both rely on nettles as the major food source for their caterpillars and yet most Kiwis will pull out a nettle if they find it in their garden.
The exhibition has the species, distributions, pictures of typical environments with superimposed butterfly pictures and models of the red, the yellow and a caterpillar.
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