Minotaur maze Exhibits: Maze Detail

Amazing Butterflies, created by The Natural History Museum in London in collaboration with Minotaur Mazes, invites you to shrink down into the undergrowth to become one of the most extraordinary creatures on earth.

Embark on a challenging journey teeming with friends and foes revealing the unusual relationship between caterpillars, butterflies and their natural surroundings. Adventure through the leaves, move like a caterpillar, discover an ant that reaps the reward of an unusual friendship, then transform into a butterfly and take flight!

Together, families will explore this interactive maze experience and learn the surprising challenges butterflies face every day.

Goals:

Discover the mysterious lifecycle from caterpillar to butterfly
Identify different butterfly species
Learn about their unique survival challenges
Become a caterpillar and transform into a butterfly

Overview:

Enter the interactive maze through the huge monarch caterpillar tunnel. Become a caterpillar and find your way through a secret, wild world as grass and leaves tower above your head.

As you navigate the terrain filled with challenges around every twist and turn, take on puzzles, games and exciting interactivities. The brave can even take to the air and soar down the butterfly zip slide.

You’ll discover fascinating facts about one of our planets most amazing lifecycles. But beware. The maze includes dead-ends, down which, lurks poisonous plants and predators waiting to pounce. Choose the right route, stamp your card along the way, and emerge as a beautiful butterfly.

Interactives

Lifecycle Garden Card - Mark your progress as a butterfly by stamping your Garden Card at 8 Lifecycle Stations: egg, larva, food, friends & defenses, chrysalis, nectar, finding a mate, and lay eggs/host plant.

Caterpillar Crawl - Grab some friends and learn to crawl like a caterpillar. Slip your feet into a set of prolegs or true legs and see if you can sprint for the finish line. Moving back to front simulates ‘rectilinear locomotion’ – no wonder it takes a caterpillar so long to get anywhere!

Caterpillar Pinball - Caterpillars are picky eaters! Shoot their favorite ‘lunch balls’ into the mouths of different caterpillars but be careful to feed them the right ones and watch out for those nasty red pesticide balls!

Hairy Plant Attack - As a defense against hungry caterpillars, the ‘velcro passionflower’ developed tiny hooked hairs (trichomes) sharp enough to keep them safe from caterpillars. Walk through this tactile display and imagine how these hairs could trap and kill you.

Creepy Friends - Carpenter ants in Panama defend metalmark caterpillars from parasitic wasps and other predators. Play out this unique relationship in a foosball match with a striker wasp aiming shots at the metalmark with the goal of ringing the bell. Try your turn as the attacking wasp or as the side of ant friends on defense.

Climb-In Pupa Pods - Recreate one of the most magical transformations of the animal world as your successful journey as a caterpillar comes to an end. Climb into a crysallis, experience metamorphosis, and emerge as a butterfly. Capture the moment in the Pupa Pod photo opportunity.

Metamorphosis Chamber - Delve through the stages of metamorphosis and realize all that takes place in this dramatic transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.

Flap Those Wings - You’ve just emerged from your chrysalis, and it’s time to fly. Grab a friend and together crank the wheels, get the blood flowing and flap your wide wonderful wings high in the sky.

Spider Web Climb - Now that you can fly, new dangers hide around each turn. Get a spider’s eye view of a wicked web you DON’T want to get tangled up in or DO you?

Finding Food Nectar Path Puzzle - The Postman butterfly can see how much nectar is in the Lantana camara flower by its color. Try your hand at gathering the most nectar you can find, but choose your path wisely.

Nectar Squeeze & Sniff - Think you can smell like a butterfly? Take a sniff and see what all the fuss is about!

The Mating Game - Do your own courtship dance, using iridescent wings that catch the attention of potential mates. Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.

Educated Egg-locator - Don’t put all your eggs in one basket - or at least on one host-plant. Butterflies lay their eggs on specific plants. Match the species to their preferred host.

Backyard Butterfly Party - Inviting butterflies into your backyard is as easy as one, two, three! Discover simple changes you can make to attract these beauties into your backyard.

Butterfly Behavior Wheel - Butterflies lead busy lives. They hatch and crawl and fight and eat and change and fly and mate and sleep. Grab the wheel - spin to play, see how these insects spend their day. Then hunt through the maze and find where your chosen activity is taking place.

Monarch Migration Monorails - You made it! Now that you’ve earned your wings, grab a hold and take flight. Experience the exhilarating migration of the Monarchs for yourself.

An Egg’s Perspective - Look through an egg to see all your caterpillar friends walking on leaves and beginning to feed.

Leaf Climb - Crawl and climb on life -size leaves in the early stages of your larval journey.