Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XVIII

The cover of my Rough Guide to Malaysia has a photograph of a beautiful spotted butterfly feeding from a flowered vine. I tried to duplicate this same shot at the Kuala Lumpur butterfly park, but I was unable. My camera is too simple to capture butterflies moving so quickly. Either I could not focus correctly, or the butterfly was gone too quickly. And I tried many times.

The vine with red flowers in the background grows hanging from a special palm. The flowers have a cup shaped opening with lots of juicy nectar for butterflies and insects.

To understand the scale of this picture, the leaf in the center is as wide as your hand. The butterfly was about six inches across. Amazing that it sat still so long for me to photograph.

One last thing: How do they make a butterfly park? Put up a giant net, remove the predators, and provide lots of butterfly breeding grounds and food (read: nectar). They even spray sugar water on picked flowers floating in water so that butterflies do not go hungry if nectar is low in the flowering plants. They also work to always have at least some plants flowering in the gardens.