What can we see at the exhibition today? Why is your stand so popular?
For the fourth year in a row, we have come from Poznań to Lublin to the ZooPark. We show people mainly insects. Live butterflies enjoy great popularity. On a daily basis, I run a butterfly house at the zoo in Poznań, to which we invite you. Everything indicates that the local butterfly house will be the most beautiful in Poland. Today we have three beautiful species of tropical butterflies from Costa Rica, South America. There is a beautiful blue Morpho as well as Caligo eurilochus and Caligo memnon. I know, these names sound „weird” like Latin names.
Where does the passion for such animals come from?
Everyone has a cat, dog or rabbit, and it turns out that nowadays everyone can also breed an insect. I joke and tease people, but I want to make everyone realize that such pejorative terms as „bugs” or „worms” are wrong, because they are not worms, but insects. Hopefully I will never have to show people pinworms to make people understand what worms are.
The presented Jungle Nymph (Heteropteryx dilatata) from Indonesia, which is the biggest in the world, and at the same time one of the largest insects on earth, is the object of sighs of many insect amateurs who would like to breed one, so if they do not have the conditions for it, they can us come and admire this lovely animal.
How to prepare to buy a praying mantis, stick insect or other insect?
The animal is not a thing. Before you buy any animal, find out everything about it. We are here to inform you. Prepare a suitable terrarium, think about what we will feed such an animal, whether we have access to it. Once we have everything ready, determine who cleans up, who buys food, etc., only then can we buy an animal.
Should we be afraid of insects?
People do harm, not animals. We should not be afraid of animals, we should be afraid of people. There are accidents involving animals, sometimes tragic and fatal, but mostly it is human fault anyway. Animals do not hurt us and this is what we want to show: that the fear of various insects is completely unjustified. Love animals and admire nature.
What does the Ministry of Butterflies do on a daily basis?
Every year, during the summer season, we run a butterfly house at the zoo in Poznań. We also deal with „butterfly” wedding and other events. Last year we released butterflies for Andrzej Wajda’s 90th birthday. We released them at a papal concert at Piłsudski Square in Warsaw, at hairdressing shows and fashion shows. Our butterflies also took part in advertisements. We even traveled to Istanbul with them, where an advertisement of a certain washing powder was filmed. Recently, we started building butterfly cages in shopping malls.
The butterflies we release often do not come back, they have to be caught with a net and then transported in special containers.
