Today the lady I work with left a little while before I arrived at my internship, so I almost didn’t have anything to do. Fortunately, it was a sunny day and the butterflies were all out and about. On days when the sun has just come out after a cloudy sky, the butterflies get excited and fly around everywhere. It’s so much prettier than normal days. Unfortunately they aren’t the smartest of creatures and they try to fly towards the sun too often. They easily get stuck on windowsills and occasionally in vents or back rooms. When this happens we go on “Butterfly Rescue” where we take a butterfly hamper and go rescue them from areas where they’re stuck and maybe don’t have access to food. There were a lot so I got to practice my butterfly wrangling skills which are very sharpened by now.
I finished up with releasing the now freed butterflies and was quickly found by someone else working on the plants in the exhibit who needed some help and knew J needed something to do. I helped deadhead a lot of flowers and plants in the exhibit and had to collect some of the dead butterflies from the plant beds. It was really a chance to examine the environment the butterflies spend so much of their lives in. We found a few Atlas Moths but the odd thing was the size of them. They were so tiny. Usually they’re bigger than my whole face, but these were about as large as my hand, which was really odd but absolutely adorable.
I also got to meet the exhibit’s iguana. I had noticed before the distinct personalities in the butterflies, but it was so bizarre how much personality the iguana has. He’s so old he’s older than me (he was born in 1999), and he can understand some English and Spanish commands. He first came up the edge of his cage and the lady I was helping said it was because the iguana was interested in me. She gave me a flower to feed him and he took it right away. He then started nodding his head up and down which is apparently how he greets new people. Every time he saw a new person, he could recognize that they were new and he would nod at them. I was amazed he could tell all the people apart, it was absolutely wild. Then, as there weren’t a lot of guests walking around, the iguanas caretakers opened his cage and he slowly walked out. I turns out that at night they let him roam free around the butterflies and he knows to return to his little home by 8:57 for the museum’s opening. It was wild, he was really like a little dog or something. They even picked him up and pet him. Anyways, I made a new reptilian friend today. It was a good day
I finished up with releasing the now freed butterflies and was quickly found by someone else working on the plants in the exhibit who needed some help and knew J needed something to do. I helped deadhead a lot of flowers and plants in the exhibit and had to collect some of the dead butterflies from the plant beds. It was really a chance to examine the environment the butterflies spend so much of their lives in. We found a few Atlas Moths but the odd thing was the size of them. They were so tiny. Usually they’re bigger than my whole face, but these were about as large as my hand, which was really odd but absolutely adorable.
I also got to meet the exhibit’s iguana. I had noticed before the distinct personalities in the butterflies, but it was so bizarre how much personality the iguana has. He’s so old he’s older than me (he was born in 1999), and he can understand some English and Spanish commands. He first came up the edge of his cage and the lady I was helping said it was because the iguana was interested in me. She gave me a flower to feed him and he took it right away. He then started nodding his head up and down which is apparently how he greets new people. Every time he saw a new person, he could recognize that they were new and he would nod at them. I was amazed he could tell all the people apart, it was absolutely wild. Then, as there weren’t a lot of guests walking around, the iguanas caretakers opened his cage and he slowly walked out. I turns out that at night they let him roam free around the butterflies and he knows to return to his little home by 8:57 for the museum’s opening. It was wild, he was really like a little dog or something. They even picked him up and pet him. Anyways, I made a new reptilian friend today. It was a good day
My new bestie <3
Some Morpho butterflies from rescue.
The cutest tiny Atlas moth.
Some thirsty Rice Papers.
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