National Museum debuts its butterfly garden

The National Museum in San José now not only offers a glimpse into the country’s past, but also showcases a vibrant collection of some 600 colorful butterflies. On Wednesday, the museum’s mariposario, or butterfly garden, opened its doors for the first time in the most recent attempt to modernize the institution and tie together architecture, history, art and nature.

The mariposario offers 25 colorful species of diurnal butterflies native to the Central Valley in a 500-square-meter (5,400-square-foot) enclosure. The vegetation was specially selected to reproduce the butterflies’ natural habitat.