Interview with butterfly specialist : David Furchtgott

David is the owner and founder of Morph Kiteboarding. I have asked him to tell me about how he got into butterflies in the first place and here is what he had to say;

I started collecting butterflies when I was 6 years old.  I used to join my mom for a walk, and I used to return home with shoe box full of butterflies and insects so after realizing my passion, my dad bought me a butterfly net in the USA, and I started collecting butterflies in front of my house.

When I started high school, there was a science teacher that taught me how to dissect the insects and how to study them, from there ( this was in Costa Rica ) I started going every Saturday to the mountain to collect insects, mostly butterflies.  I started reproducing them in captivity and in my house.  I built a butterfly garden with the specific host plants to reproduce Morphos, Caligos, Heliconiidae and Papilionidae, and from there I started building custom butterfly gardens for people in their gardens in Costa Rica.

I was also active in Scientific fairs at school, and one time I participated at the national level, where I won the 1st place with the most complete study made about the Morphidae family. I was able to collect and study for several weeks in the mountain, all 9 sub species of Morphos existing in Costa Rica.

After that I did presentations about butterflies in the National Zoo, as a summer camp for kids (I was 14 or 15 at this time ), in addition I used to collect specimens for every museum in Costa Rica. If you visit: Universidad de Costa RIca, La Salle, Universidad Nacional de CR, Museo Natural, you will find at least 1 specimen collected by me.

I also worked for the family Posla, in their world class famous butterfly garden in San Joaquin de Flores as a tour guide, where I learn the most techniques about reproduction in captivity.

When I arrived to Tulum, I was invited by the UN to make a Butterfly specimen count to see the kinds of species, and how many where living in Sian Ka’an Biosphere, due to other circumstances I was unable to participate but was honoured to be asked.

Source: http://mari-pos-a.com/