Listen to Neil's butterfly beginnings...

"I got interested first of all, actually, by looking at plants, and growing plants, and when I was six years old I started off with cacti and then quickly graded up to bananas like this one next to us - a ten foot banana with a six foot leaf right in front of us - and I used to go round all the specialist lists trying to grow seeds of these things, which I did, and that got me really interested in tropical plants.

And after school I went out on a gap year to Borneo and that was the first time I'd been abroad and I landed in Borneo and everyone was extremely friendly to me and helpful and I just started picking out mountains on maps to go up and look at. I went up there and got some guides to go with me, slept up on the mountains there and in those travels I saw these huge Swallowtails like this one next to us just flying by, its black and red, about five inches wingspan, and I saw that on a bus trip and that was it, I just started following butterflies.

My interests have sort of expanded and when I was younger my mother used to keep Atlas moths as well so that's something we've got into breeding here, big moths, these ones a huge, they're the size of your hand, I had an eleven inch one last year so in a way this is my interest, my childhood interest. I am a botanist by training but here, I can do what I love."

Interview with Neil Gale

Update: August 2008

The rainy weather in the summer of 2008 is helping to boost numbers at the Magic of Life Butterfly House, Aberystwyth.

We've had our two best days ever with tourists looking for things to do inside in this dreary weather.

This coincides with a new butterfly breeding success at the butterfly house. Two Blue-banded Morphos, Morpho achilles, have just emerged after four months' development.

Morphos are one of the most spectacular butterflies that we have and it's very exciting to see them flying around. We imported the original pupae back in March from French Surinam and it has taken all this time for them to come out as adult butterflies."