The Emergence of the Hero and Heroin

6 days ago, I was really excited to see that the first cocoon has turned into an elegant butterfly. She is a female stichius and has been doing well in captivity. The next day, another female stichius came out from the chrysalis and join her sister. They are doing well now and everyday I make sure that the sugar water is always full as they feed on it. The first female now has a fat belly as she likes to feed on it. Today, I was really again fascinated that another pupa has cracked open and a Male emerged. Polytes males usually do not have any red color markings on their wing instead they bear  several white stripes on their frontal and back wings. 

  A Polytes male finally emerged..

 

 

The female stichius after feeding...

Artificial Feeding of Polytes Butterflies

 It has been five days since the butterflies emerged from the cocoon. As for the feeding, I prepared a bowl of sugar water where I place few sponge cuts into it. Well, since the butterfly does not know how to feed as no flowers are available, I tried to hand feed them by grabbing gently the base of the forewings and dip the mouth part into the water. This triggered the butterfly to release its probosis and began sucking the water. And as a result, it keeps feeding until today and I can see the abdomen becomes fat.. hehe

 

You can see the butterfly stick out its long probosis and sucking the sugar water 

                                            This angle shows a clear view of the probosis

Polytes Butterfly Breeding in Captivity

Due to corvid-19 case rising, the lab was closed for two weeks. Therefore, I brought the cage back and setup the breeding enclosure at home. To initiate the process, all pupae were placed inside the cage and the food stand as well as you can see in the image below. Hopefully, the butterflies will not be stressed out in the cage... Crossing fingers to this!

                              The breeding cage where the pupae are placed as to allow them to emerge.

Eclosion of Polytes Eggs and Development

 The egg of P. polytes undergoes a 3 days incubation in which on the 4th day of egg laying, the egg hatches into a 1st instar larva. After about 12 to 13 hours of dormancy, it starts to feed on young leaves and keeps growing until two days where it sheds skin into the 2nd instar. The larva keeps feeding for 3 subsequent days before reaching the 3rd instar.

After 3 days EL, the egg hatched into 1st instar catty. So small right that I had to use the magnifying glass to see.

The catty in its 2nd instar. I think it is growing the internal cuticle from the inside and ready to undergo the 2nd molt.

STEM Education for Kids: Butterfly Metamorphosis

 Butterfly metamorphosis has always been my interest ever since I was young. Observing the transformation from egg to larva and finally to adult butterfly has instilled the love of science in myself.  Such passion has brought me into the present career in science and engineering technology. Due to the corvid 19 pandemic, I spent sometimes at kampung to show the world of science to my niece as to instill the love of science in younger generation. By improvising the available items, we transformed the cat portable cage into a butterfly observatory. Of course, it is part of the STEM education...This is the final stage where we are waiting for the butterflies to emerge from the cocoons within 10 days from now. Crossing fingers guys!

 

 

 

Pupation Process

The pupation process of Papilio polytes was observed yesterday where the caterpillar was seen to curl on the twig around 700 am in the morning. It stayed in the same static position and if you look at it properly, it sometimes wriggled its body slowly. This is the process where it sheds the cuticle@skin from the inside. Around 930 pm, the process was completed with a full transformation into a pupa. The old catty cuticle was removed and fell at the bottom. Overall, the pupation process takes approximately 14 hours.

ANother Encounter for STEM Education

This morning after breakfast around 800 am, I went to the old station to find if there were any more traces of the caterpillars on the curry plant. This time, my niece accompanied me to check and we were surprised to see that there were four more catties@caterpillar of the 2nd and 3rd instar; busy devouring the leaves. My niece was very excited and asked 'pakde, can I keep two of them for observation?' And so she did. I allowed her as to expose her to science of insect metamorphosis in the early years. After we observed and discussed, we set up a simple experiment, collected the caterpillars and placed in the enclosure with plant to feed on. Hopefully, this will encourage her to engage in science slowly.

                        Simple experiment setup to observe the caterpillars changing into butterflies