Well, I dunno if I’d consider it a “hobby”, more like an “obligation”…
My daughter (5yrs) had some school funds leftover and we needed to use it for something, then we found we could use it for “science experiments” which constitutes the cycle of life. We chose to buy some Painted Lady butterflies.
Anyways, we’re now on our 3rd generation since we finally figured out how to get them to breed.
The little dark spiky-looking balls is the last shedding of the caterpillar before entering the cocoon (they shed their feet, hair, and like most of their skin before wrapping up. Yes, it’s gross lol).
I’ve got some pictures of the eggs around here somewhere. Might just have to take pictures when they emerge and show you guys the explosion of butterfly f*cking that leads to tiny blue eggs carpet-bombing the butterfly enclosure.
We wanted to get some Monarchs, but they went endangered at like the same time we got into the butterfly business; California protects it’s animals better than it’s people, so we can’t find any Monarchs
Nowhere near the talent you all have, really I think I just want to put this picture somewhere… but I do theme night Fridays with the kids. Usually it’s a country, so I’ll make them learn something (only places I’ve been - I refuse to learn anything!) and maybe “hello, goodbye” in their language, and we’ll eat their food and do an activity.
My son broke his wrist the other day (which I actually didn’t realize it was really broken until yesterday, so I failed there), and is pretty into Halloween, so I went pretty easy on them Friday and we did haunted house stuff and Ohio ghost stories.
Rumor has it the new generation is coming next month so the current Hero 10 and Max are on a big sale.
Also look at the brand insta360 for action cameras. Careful of the reviews on YouTube for those as the company sends a lot of free cameras to the bigger channels. They all say they aren’t giving it higher marks because it was free, but you never know…
Not all of them make it out of their cocoons, and some make it out but with messed up wings.
The red color is just the dye they had in their cocoons, and it stains everything, so there’s no undoing these stains lol. It’s the same dye that colors their wings.
Most of the mating attempts (when they link butts) don’t result in eggs, the one pictured above didn’t either. They’re going to have a big ole butterfly orgy (they form a ‘train’ and kind of leap frog over each other until they choose a mate - yes its funny to watch) here in a day or two and we’ll probably have some eggs soon.
