First stop on the butterfly express

No one goes to a cockroach zoo, but people will stray out of their way to visit a butterfly house. Locating one of these lepidopteran Edens is a fast click on this easy-to-navigate, fact-loaded site that neatly balances sales with serious info on butterfly biology, rearing and conservation, including links to suppliers and ideas for family activities.

Online adventurers can follow 40 million Monarchs on their epic, 2,000-mile journey to winter in Michoacan, Mexico; tour the famous Butterfly Farm in Costa Rica that pioneered the concept of encouraging indigenous peoples to raise insects to preserve tropical rainforests; or stroll through the Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory.

Butterflies are big business, hauling in an astonishing $5 million to $15 million dollars a year in sales of live and dried specimens, not to mention jewelry and trinkets devoted to these shimmering aerialists.

--Susan Dworski