THE HEAD keeper of the Butterfly House at Lancaster's Williamson Park is to go on a bugman's holiday.

Insect specialist Rosemary Smyth is taking an exotic holiday in Penang for an international conference on butterflies.

Rosemary, a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, has used her expertise to look after the park's 200 butterflies and develop the mini-beast house and bird enclosure.

And the Fourth International Conference of Butterfly Exhibitors in Penang will give her the opportunity to meet the world's leading experts in breeding butterflies in captivity. She will also be able to see what new species are available for Lancaster's Butterfly House.

Rosemary is also hoping to learn more about transporting pupae and also the parasites and diseases that affect them.

"We've got 25 different breeds of butterfly here from all over the world," said Rosemary, whose original specialist subject was fleas! "The conference is for people who exhibit butterflies and, while I'm there, I'll find out about new breeds, chrysalises and how best to transport them. I'll hopefully see some new species which I'll be able to order for Lancaster. I'd love to have some of the big, bird-wing butterflies which have large swallow tails."

There are 200 butterflies in the butterfly house at Ashton Memorial from tiny glass-winged butterflies to much larger owl breeds.

Some of the breeds only live for a couple of weeks while others can survive for up to four or five months.

Rosemary added: "I'm very excited about going to Penang. I'll be able to find out which breeds will best suit the conditions in our butterfly house. This is my first exhibition and I'm looking forward to the experience."

The butterfly house at Ashton Memorial will be open as normal, from 11am to 4pm everyday.

There's still some creatures left to adopt at Williamson Park as part of the 'Adopt a Creature" scheme.

Anyone can join for just £15 and the adoption runs for 12 months. You can choose to adopt one of the many wee beasties from dead leaf mantis to red eared terrapin to white tree frogs.

Or you could adopt a bird like the orange-cheeked wax or the pekin robin.

For more details call 33318.