Get up close with butterflies at this Blythewood festival
In many ways, it’s a typical festival with music, food and crafts.
But this festival has something a bit different – butterflies.
Of course at the Butterfly Festival, that would be a rather important requirement.
The Blythewood Butterfly Festival is set for Saturday, May 20 at Blythewood’s Doko Meadows Park.
The walk-in butterfly tent, named The Butterfly Experience, is filled with live native butterflies from six different species for visitors to enjoy.
There are other butterfly- and pollinator-centered activities as well, including a Caterpillar Petting Zoo and the Storybook and Character Garden and guided hikes.
Here are some facts about butterflies, found at www.thebutterflysite.com:
▪ There are about 24,000 species of butterflies.
▪ Butterflies range in size from 1/8 inch to almost 12 inches.
▪ Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.
▪ The top butterfly flight speed is 12 mph.
▪ Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.
▪ Many butterflies can taste with their feet to find out whether the leaf they sit on is a good place to lay eggs (the leaf becomes their caterpillars’ food).
Butterflies in South Carolina
The organization Butterflies and Moths of North America lists 153 species of butterflies in South Carolina. Some of them have fun names. Among them:
Eastern tiger swallowtail (South Carolina’s state butterfly)
Black swallowtail
Giant swallowtail
Pepper and salt skipper
Dun skipper
Common sootywing
Confused cloudywing
Dreamy duskywing
Gulf fritillary
Small tortoiseshell
Southern dogface
Carolina satyr
If you go
Blythewood Butterfly Festival
WHEN: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, May 20
WHERE: Doko Meadows Park, 171 Langford Road, Blythewood
COST: Free admission, $8 for Butterfly Experience (free for children 2 and younger)
INFO: Proceeds benefit the nonprofit programs at Camp Discovery, which provides hands-on learning experiences in an outdoor classroom.
This story was originally published May 17, 2017 at 2:38 PM.