Oh wow has it been a full couple weeks! Here’s a few of the things happening these days!
The butterfly lab is getting overhauled! Walls are getting knocked down, cement’s getting mixed on the floor, cinder blocks laid… while I stand in the middle of it all changing out grass for the morpho’s and checking in on mystery caterpillars. It’s a funny sight but I’m excited for the change. We’re taking it from a fully enclosed structure (translated – no breeze, stiflingly humid and dimly lit) to an airier brighter space by converting 2 of the walls to half cement half shade cloth.
MONKEYS, MONKEYS, MONKEYS! The mango trees across the street are drawing in a couple different groups of white face monkeys this week…. and they aren’t exactly willing to share or play nice together. I keep waiting for a man with a British accent to start narrating as I watch them charging at each other, hissing and posturing, guarding the mother with the baby on her back….. you k
now the usual kind of thing you expect to see on Animal Planet. As soon as I (and when I say I, I mean Josh) get my video editing software fixed I will post some videos as well as more pics.
My two mystery chrysalises I posted last week STILL haven’t emerged. Although another caterpillar pupated and has joined them. I expect all three of them to emerge as some type of swallowtail… IF they ever emerge! 🙁
Meanwhile, a chrysalis I didn’t mention in my posts has emerged! I had hardly given it any attention because when I’d found the caterpillar Josh told me it was probably a zebra longwing. I kept it to observe & photograph but didn’t have the same level of excitement and anticipation I get when I don’t have any idea what they are. Turns out I should have been more excited! Not only did it give me much more instant gratification – emerging from its chrysalis within a week of having formed – but it’s not a zebra longwing! It is a Heliconius erato also known as the red postman, which we raised on our Bat-winged passionflower vine Passiflora coriacea.