Nearly a New Year!

Merry Christmas everybody! This Monday was my last visit to my internship during the year 2018. For the last time of the year, it was fairly undramatic. I helped with some simple stuff like placing some cocoons to a styrofoam board, which we hang in a way so that the cocoons are hanging down. The fact that they move still freaks me out but I tried to get over it so I could get my job done faster. I also cleaned off and took data from a styrofoam board where all the cocoons had hatched. All the work with the boards actually took quite a bit of time. One of the reasons is that there were a couple of loose butterflies around when I got to the room, and they did not want to be caught. Putting the cocoons on the board is also difficult, especially because they tend to move around a lot, one started hanging off my sleeve, and they need to be separated by species.

I've started noticing that the different butterfly species actually react differently when I'm trying to catch them. The Morphos play dead, they keep their legs close to their bodies and try very hard to stay still. Because of their natural camouflage, I'm assuming they have a lot of predators in the wild, and this is one of their tactics for being left alone. Other butterflies with more flitty personalities and better camouflage hate the idea of being caught and will do as much as they can to hide from me unless I grab them as quickly as possible. Glasswings like the Greta oto are like this, and they do not like being found. The more calm butterflies may wave their legs around when caught, but for the most part don't seem to care much. My favorite kind, the Rice Paper (Idea leuconoe) are very chill, and after you catch one, you can put them on your sleeve and they'll probably just stay there.

Overall, I'm so happy that I chose this internship over one in a regular office space. It's so nice every Monday afternoon to get to work in the butterfly exhibit. I think I've started to get over some of my fears of animals, especially the bugs, because there are a lot of those. I can't wait for 2019!