Tuesday 7 October 2014

The Zoologist Chronicles: The Diary of Morpheus

So, guys, welcome back to the Zoologist Chronicles! Which as you would remember I started since I study zoology and have always had an interest in animals, besides music. I also would like to mention I'll be starting my Masters in Zoology this month, with a specialization in entomology. That's the study of arthropods which includes bugs and spiders and all that. And yeah, spiders are not insects. More on that later.

This post is about a beautiful lime butterfly called Morpheus.

He started out as an egg laid on a tiny lemon-less lemon tree in my house, but I found him as a caterpillar and decided to keep him.

The 3rd instar stage

He ate a lot of lemon leaves and spent time exploring his jar home. After two more molting sessions, he became a green thing. (I know, that sounds so like a zoology student.)

After he ate a lot more, he became like this. Almost like he was ready to explode.


I became more excited since I knew he was gonna pupate soon (and I wouldn't have to wake up so early to bring him fresh leaves. More time to sleep in, yeah!).

When a caterpillar is ready to pupate, it starts to climb around to find a nice patch for hanging around and spins a silk cradle of sorts for itself. The silk is released from spinnerettes near its mouth. My caterpillar managed to find a place to attach but the chrysalis fell down. I placed it in a paper cone to keep it upright. It came in handy for the newly eclosed butterfly to rest as it dried its wings. One of the most amazing things was to watch the chrysalis transition from a somewhat crumpled green thing to something that looked like a folded butterfly wrapped in a transparent green membrane. Wow. I missed the butterfly 'hatching' or eclosing, but I got to hold it until it dried off its wings and flew away. 

Day 1 as a chrysalis

About day 5 as a chrysalis

Day 9 (I think). Almost right before eclosion

drying off wings

Since then, I've tried raising more butterflies - three more lime butterflies to be exact. Two of them I left on the tree outside and met a nasty death due to parasitoid wasps when they pupated. It was kinda heartbreaking, honestly. The empty chrysalis swung from the little lemon tree for a long time. 

The fourth attempt was a success though. Here is the unnamed little guy.



I would encourage everyone to raise butterflies as long as they are a species native to Pakistan. All you need for them is a plastic container that can be easily cleaned and covered, and a fresh supply of the leaves for the caterpillar. The caterpillars eat the leaves of the plants they hatch on. You'll know its the one if the leaves are all chewed and eaten. It's a beautiful feeling to watch the emerged butterfly fly away. Something inside me usually wants to keep it, but then it won't be able to benefit the environment. 

So, here we go. The tale of Morpheus, may not be very interesting to humans, but look at life from the butterfly's point of view. It fights to be born so hard. I like to think it is born twice - first from an egg and then from a chrysalis. 



No comments:

Post a Comment

2017, 2017

Yo fellow humans, how you doin'.  It's been a year since I updated this blog last... I guess I haven't really accomplishe...