June 16: Piano Wings

Butterflies and piano keys don't seem to go together somehow. In the Fort Lauderdale area, they do. I learned this over the weekend when I returned to Butterfly World for another visit. It's been a while since my last trip to this fairyland attraction, a place where some of the most fragile and beautiful creatures on the planet float around you as if in a lovely dream. I found myself using the word "magical" as Gwendolyn and I wandered through the centerpiece of Butterfly World - the Paradise Adventure Aviary. This is the home for thousands of butterflies of all colors and sizes, from all over the world.  There's also a new feature since I was here last: hummingbirds now live in this same aviary, flitting and darting right along with the butterflies.

But it was on our way into Paradise Adventure Aviary that I found out about the piano keys. At the entrance, a worker was emptying small containers, each holding a single butterfly that had emerged that day from a chrysalis. There must have been 30 of the plastic jars, which the man opened and shook to release the butterfly.

These were small butterflies in a variety of colors but each with a row of distinct white markings along its wings. Markings that looked like, yep, piano keys. "They're called ‘piano key butterflies,'" the worker explained. "The owner bred them here. This is the only place on earth where you'll find piano key butterflies." Fascinating. We watched as these newborn butterflies emerged into their world for the first time. Think about it. At first, they were only caterpillars chomping on leaves inside a Butterfly World lab. Then each turned itself into a chrysalis and, after a few weeks, climbed out of this safe shell into ... a plastic jar. To them, I suppose, this must have seemed like the entire universe for a few hours. I could imagine them feeling something like, "Well, sure, my new place is small. But I can make it work." And then the next thing they knew - freedom. A protected freedom, with more than enough space and more than enough food and lots and lots of playmates. Not a bad life for a butterfly, I should think. For them, it's a moist, leafy, plentiful world to live out their days. For us, it's something else. "Magical" really is the best word for it.