I was going to give in but you have inspired me to carry on, I have been waiting for one butterfly for nearly 2 weeks, sometimes I sit for hours just bobbing round the map hoping for it to pop up, still getting lots of others and mushrooms but this one butterfly? Not a chance.
I have 50 Elders and have been playing since the day the games was released.......I am going to try the map thing now and if that works I too will love you forever !

LOL, well not in a crazy stalker sort of way if that is what your concerned about! Just the "Hey, they really helped make things easier" sort way!

I'm begining to loose hope though. Even with that bit of info I am still 308 hours into the game and missing 3 butterflies, 1 shell, and one beetle.

Don't give up Keri! It's allways this long waiting for those last 4 collectables. Even longer waiting for the last one!

Oh don't I know. I had a game going and had only one to go. Oopes, I deleted the game by complete mistake after about 3 days of that being the only thing left to do.

Aww... Sorry about that tribe, keri. At least the next is allways the best! {[:}

I need one more beetle, the red tipped one that has the body that blends in with the vines by the gong. I star at that dang section for hours!!!

I finally got the shell collection complete. I still need one butterfly (uncommon), one beetle (rare), and three pebbles (two rare and one uncommon).

I don't know if it was a coincidence or what, but I got the last seashell - actually the red starfish - after all my villagers got a plague caused by a dead parrot - and made sure every last one of them got healed. It took awhile as about 80 out of 90 people were sick, but I managed to make three adults into trainee doctors and used two kids with healing skills as well.

Here is another interesting glitch I found on the boards about collectables. If you take a kid and bring them up to the burial area, there is a large purple leaf there, kinda up in the 1-2 oclock position. Put the kid so it is "under" that leaf, they sit there for a few seconds to a minute, and then collectables tend to pop up, also mushrooms. When I really want to get some, that is how I force it to happen. It is not 100%, but most times, probably about 80% of the time, it works.

I don't see a purple leaf? Where?

Are you talking about the coconut leaf?

A way to pick up collectables in a hurry is to pick up a kid and push a number on your number keypad. Each number goes to a different location. Yes, they are in order. Sometimes this saves you from them dissapearing before you get there. You can also search for them this way if you want to.