Hey everybody, Noah's Ark here today in my backyard, and there are butterflies.
Now, while I mention all over the channel that I raise butterflies in-house,
you've never really gotten the chance to see what that looks like.
What I want to do in this episode is take you through the process of: In the wild, to egg, to caterpillar,
to butterfly, to back in the wild.
Alright, first day, June 15th.
And it's kind of late in the afternoon, but the butterflies are still out.
I planted this garden specifically for the purpose of attracting butterflies, and one of the plants
that I grow here, is Passion vine.
Passion vine is probably one of the most beautiful of all flowers, in my opinion.
And it's great, because this is exactly what Gulf Fritillaries lay their eggs on.
Passion vine has the tendency to just kind of pop up everywhere. More spots for a butterfly to lay eggs on.
So I'm on an Easter egg hunt right now, searching for all the eggs that I can.
Well, let me introduce the Gulf Fritillary.
The Gulf Fritillary is probably the most tropical looking butterfly you can find around where I live,
the California Bay Area.
It's actally not native to here, it's from the south, and Mexico.
If the weather's really nice here, some of them will stray all the way up to Northern California,
And their caterpillars look super cool, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go collect some eggs.
Alright, got a bunch of butterfly eggs, time to go inside and sort them out.
June 16th. Nothing.
June 17th. Nothing.
June 18th. Something! I don't know how the eggs hatched this fast,
maybe it was the hot weather we've been having lately? But, they've hatched. And I will get some close-up shots soon.
At this early in their life, most people will tell you not to touch them with your hands.
I touch them with my hands. But that's only because I'm super careful.
If you're nervous about picking up animals the size of periods, then use a Q-tip or a paintbrush. Both will work well.
I don't.
Look at how small and cute they are, in fact, here's a video of one of them next to a dime!
I will super carefully put one of my fingers by one of the caterpillars, so that he rolls over and crawls onto my finger.
Once he's on my finger, I will take the leaf, put him on the leaf, and ta-da.
Caterpillar on leaf. (Feel the excitement)
Throw away the old contents, put the leaf back inside, close the lid, and ta-da!
I have successfully fed baby caterpillars.
But the fun doesn't really start until they get big, an for that, I will come back to you in a day or two.
June 22nd, and it's been a few days since I last recorded. Since then, I've collected a lot more caterpillars from the backyard.
But for video's sake, I'm going to only focus on group 1, which was our original group.
The caterpillars have tripled in size, and have also grown some attractive spikes.
They're also starting to eat more.
June 25th.
July 1st, and the caterpillars have gotten so large that group 1 have moved from the smaller container
Into this middle container here, which is larger, and has more room for them.
In the past few days, the caterpillars have grown considerably larger in comparison to a dime.
The spikes have gotten bigger, orange has gotten a little brighter, and overall, bigger caterpillar.
July 3rd, and I'll be honest, it feels like I've been switching caterpillar containers every other day.
So what I've done is consolidated all of the caterpillars into one giant container.
This way it'll be easier to feed them, clean; just everything will be easier, and I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.
Also, another question that might come up at this point in their lives is:
"Noah, are those spikes poisonous, should I be worried about you and these caterpillars?"
Well no. Actually, these spikes are harmless, and they feel a lot like hairbrush bristles.
So yah, no worries about the caterpillar's spikes being poisonous.
Actually, the spines' purpose is so that when a bird eats one, it doesn't feel very good going down the throat,
and the bird will be less likely to try eating another caterpillar in the future.
The caterpillars have now entered their final stage of development.
And this means that they're going to get the largest they've ever been, and eat more than they ever have.
We will soon have chrysalises, which is awesome.
Happy 4th of July everybody!
It's July 6th, and the caterpillars are eating a lot, and shedding a lot. And this will actually be the largest that they get.
After this, they'll be searching around for a good place to make their chrysalis.
Hey everybody, July 8th, and the caterpillars are beginning to chrysalize.
So, the way to tell when these caterpillars are ready to chrysalize is that the front portion of their bodies
Near the head, it becomes white, and also becomes larger. This becomes even more pronounced
once the caterpillar picks a spot, sews a silky web all around itself, and hangs upside-down.
July 10th, and by now all of the caterpillars have made their chrysalises.
They've left behind their old caterpillar skin and are on their way to maturity.
Now I'm left with the predicament of moving the chrysalises. Because not all of them are in a convenient spot, and I want them all in one place.
What I do to move chrysalises involves using a sharp object, in this case a pin, and lightly scraping all around the chrysalis to undo the silken web.
Now, this won't hurt the chrysalis if you do it very carefully, and avoid touching it.
With a little patience, it comes off pretty easily.
But be careful. I've lost quite a few chrysalises this way.
They may not be pretty, but actually, the chrysalises look that way in order to fool predators into thinking that they're a dead leaf, or even bird poop.
So here they all are, 10 chrysalises, which is amazing.
And now using the silk that's still connected to the chrysalis, I can tape it wherever I need to.
In this case, my window.
And it's time to wait in what might be the biggest gap in this video.
See you in two weeks.
Alright, jump forward a week and a half. It's July 20th, and I can tell the chrysalises are going to hatch tomorrow.
I know because the night before they hatch, the shell of the chrysalis becomes transparent
and you can start to see butterfly wing underneath.
Let's see what the morning brings us.
Alright! July 21st, and the butterflies have hatched.
So, chrysalises tend to hatch within the earlier hours of the day, and I was not awake in the earlier hours of the day, but here I am anyways, so... Yay!
They didn't all form their chrysalises on the same day, so only 2 hatched today.
I'll be expecting the rest in the days to come.
So here I am, walking back outside to the backyard where it all began, to start the cycle over again.
Go!
Be free!
Fly!
So- So beautiful...
[Sniffs]
They grow up so fast...
And that's it! That's the entire cycle from start to finish, egg to caterpillar to butterfly to back in the wild,
and I'm so glad to have been able to share that with you guys.
There are now 2 more Gulf Fritillaries in the wild, and lots more to come in the next few days.
And it's been really great! I've never actually done something like this before.
Hopefully that did the job, and showed you how I raise butterflies, and how you can too.
If you enjoyed this video, please hit the like button, and let me know what you thought in the comments section below.
Also, Subscribe to Noah's Ark to find more videos just like this one-
And another announcement I actually want to make while I'm here is the Noah's Ark Gallery.
So, I'm on Google+, and yes, no one uses Google+ like ever, but I'm there
and there's a lot of stuff on the page that is not on the Noah's Ark channel here on Youtube.
Cause besides videotaping, I really like photography, so you can find a lot of neat animal photos there
So go ahead, check it out, there's a link on my page. [And in the description]
And again, thanks so much for watching. I'm Noah, and this is Noah's Ark.
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