Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Flutter: My Tropical Pet - by Emily Lawler


When at the Neotropical Butterfly Park, our guide gave us a chrysalis to take home. We decided to glue it to a jar lid with a hot glue gun, and when it was ready to hatch we would hang it to the ceiling. For two days it hung there, then on the third day it turned from a shiny light green to a dark brown. 


When we saw it next, there was an empty white cocoon and a crumpled butterfly hanging from it. I hung it up as soon as I could, but surprisingly, Flutter (The name mom gave it) didn’t move at all. He just hung there, pooping, until we scared it, and then it flew around for a while before stopping to rest. He kept moving his proboscis around like he was hungry, so I put a little banana mush on my finger and put it in front of his face. After a few seconds he gave way to hunger and he hung from my finger for quite a while, happily drinking. 

I figured he was happy enough, so I surfed on the internet with my left hand with him on my right trying to find out exactly what he was, and more about him. It turned out he was a Morpho Richardus butterfly, and he would only live for another 2-3 weeks. 

Morphos live in the tropical forests of Latin America from Mexico to Colombia. The name morpho comes from the appearance of morphing in flight, for when they fly, the blue iridescence inside the wings is visible only on the down stroke, whereas the brown side is shown on the upstroke, and so their predators would only see flashes of blue. The brown side that shows when they are folded has six pairs of detailed eyes to confuse predators. He comes from the family of brush footed butterflies, so although he does have six legs, the front pair has been rendered useless through evolution, and only small white lines under the head are visible. 

The total lifetime of the morpho is approximately 115 days. They hatch from light green dewdrop shaped eggs, and the caterpillars have hairs that irritate the human and when disturbed it secretes a fluid that smells like rancid butter. The strong odor is a defense against predators. The chrysalis emits a repulsive, ultrasonic sound when touched. It is suspended from a stem or leaf of the food plant. I found out that what I thought was poop was really just excess moisture that was not needed after hatching. 

  
They feed on the fluids of fermenting fruit, decomposing animals, tree sap, fungi and nutrient rich mud, and their taste buds aren’t in their mouth; they are in their feet! The adult butterflies can grow up to 8 inches wide and are diurnally active, meaning they sleep at night. They are poisonous to predators thanks to toxins they stored from plants they fed on as caterpillars. Due to their irregular flight pattern and size, their wings are frequently damaged when in captivity. I was also surprised to learn of a fact true for all butterflies, that the proboscis is like a drinking straw, not a tongue.


After he drank his fill, he fluttered off to a window, and we hypothesized that if we set him free, on his flight to shore he would probably be eaten by a bird, and if he did survive, he wouldn’t find a mate anyway. So based on that, mom set out making a butterfly enclosure out of a couple of pot lids and fishing net. Soon flutter was in his new home, with a mango and orange for food. 


During my research on the internet, I found a time lapse video of my exact species hatching and dad used it to make a short video.  I hope that you enjoy it.



I may not be able to have a dog or cat as a pet, but I’ll bet not many 12 year olds have a tropical pet butterfly!

Emily

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Neotropical Butterfly Farm



With our rented air conditioned car we visited the Neotropical Butterfly Farm in Lelydorp, a village near Paramaribo.
 
Back in 1996, Amira Mendieta-Eriks, who originally comes from Ecuador, and her husband Ewout Erik, started the butterfly business " Neotropical Insects".  It only opened to the public in 2010.
 
This is the first butterfly farm in Suriname and also one of the largest in South America.  


There are more than 20 different kinds of butterflies grown mainly for export to foreign butterfly gardens.

 


Before the guided tour we wandered around the landscaped butterfly garden, complete with waterfalls, wooden bridges, benches, beautiful rock formations and butterflies.  Central to the facility, there was an enormous netted enclosure full of butterflies that were flying all around us.



The whole process from egg to caterpillar to pupa to butterfly was explained by our English-speaking guide.   

 


She explained that each butterfly eats only one special plant and much of their efforts are involved with planting and growing these plants.  We saw where the pupa were sorted and readied for shipment. The guide gave Emily one of the cocoons to bring back to the boat and watch it hatch.  She explained which end to hot glue to a support and the importance of giving it enough room to unfurl its wings.  

 
 
Besides butterflies they had an insect museum with thousands of butterflies, moths and insects displayed.  Upstairs they had painted a 360 degree panorama of Surinamese wildlife. The room was 3 meters high with a diameter of 14 meters making the painting almost 40 meters long and was well done.

 
We ate lunch in the restaurant within the Butterfly Farm and it was quite good and not expensive.



 They also have turtles and snakes.


 

We also visited the Paramaribo Zoo to see some local animals. This relatively small zoo was a great place to spend a few hours. They had a petting zoo, playground, monkey habitat, anacondas and many birds and animals in cages. 


Although the cages were small compared to many big zoos we have seen, the animals seemed well cared for and fed.  We enjoyed seeing a capybara (the largest rodent in the world), Bengal tiger, a frisky river otter and a giant anteater.







We continue to work on small boat projects, collect rainwater and keep the floating water plant islands off the anchor chain as they move back and forth with the tides.  The internet WiFi is good here and we are surfing the net and watching movies.  ‘Mirror Mirror’ with Julia Roberts received a high score from the crew of Emily Grace.  We will probably make the 3-day passage to Tobago in early August and hope to spend a month there before moving to Trinidad for some boat maintenance and repairs.


Tom