LONDON, March 29 — London’s Natural History museum has come alive with an estimated 60 species of butterflies from the Americas, Asia and Africa as “Sensational Butterflies” returns for 2018.

 In a climate controlled enclosure on the museum’s East Lawn, people can move among living Lepidoptera that fly freely within the space among curated plants and flowers.

The exhibition also offers a chance to see the various stages of the insect’s life cycle from eggs, to chrysalis and to emerging adult butterflies slowly coming to life.

Freya Gordon, aged 10, poses for a photograph with a butterfly during an event to launch the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London March 28, 2018. — Reuters pic
Freya Gordon, aged 10, poses for a photograph with a butterfly during an event to launch the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London March 28, 2018. — Reuters pic

Back for the tenth year, the temporary butterfly habitat is overseen by Senior Curator of Lepidoptera Dr. Blanca Huertas who presides over the world renowned collection of specimens the museum holds.

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“Butterflies are very abundant in the world, they fly all over the world... (but not to) Antarctica, that’s the only place the we haven’t found butterflies. And there are about 20,000 kinds of butterflies described and we still describing new species, that’s what I do”, she told Reuters.

The exhibition runs until September 16 at the Natural History museum in London. — Reuters