Not all parents like children to catch butterflies to pierce them with a pin and attach them to a collection cardboard. Such a "herbarium" prompts reflection: who grows up in the family - a future entomologist or a little sadist?
Another thing is to get a butterfly as a pet. Why not? We will tell you how to care for a butterfly brought from the street, and how to grow it from a caterpillar. And since the age of these insects is short, the deceased pet can be immortalized with a clear conscience under glass.
And yet, is it worth it to start a butterfly?
Ethical issue
Sometimes these insects start themselves, without invitation: they simply fly into an open window. If you release a butterfly, it will spend its short life in the wild. But it is likely that in 5 minutes a bird will eat it. According to experts, leaving a butterfly at home and providing it with decent care, a person can extend the life of this insect.
In addition, today many are engaged in breeding tropical butterflies for commercial purposes, selling them for festive events. However, the process is expensive and time consuming.
Therefore, there is nothing wrong or strange in bringing an insect that has flown into a house from the street or sheltering it and creating suitable living conditions for it.
We will look at how to care for butterflies of temperate latitudes, such as, for example, the extremely common hives, peacock eyes, burdock, mourning or admiral.
Conditions of detention
From an aesthetic point of view, it is more interesting to keep butterflies, but it is worth considering that light attracts these insects. In the afternoon, the pet will tend to the window or sit on the curtains, and when it gets dark it will be pulled to all the lights on.
Of course, a butterfly must be allowed to fly around the apartment, but she must have her own house. To do this, you can use:
- Plastic container;
- a large glass jar;
- insectarium.
An insectary equipped with special equipment or at least a large plastic container will be required when breeding butterflies. And with normal maintenance, this is important if other animals live in the house, especially cats. Otherwise, with a butterfly flying freely around the apartment, there will be at least no curtains on the windows. And in the process of hunting both pets can suffer.
At t from +22 ° C and humidity within 60-80%, butterflies are active all daylight hours. If the air in the apartment is excessively dry, the insect is sprayed from the spray gun 1-2 times a day from a distance of about 30 cm from the wings.
The more time the pet spends in free space, the better. Some owners only put the insect into an ordinary box for the night, where they put a sponge moistened with water, and during the day they let them fly around the apartment.
And now the main question that worries potential owners of winged beauties: how to feed a butterfly at home?
Honey nectar and rotten fruit
What these insects eat in nature, even children know: pollen and nectar of flowers. However, this diet of butterflies is not limited to, for example, very many species drink juice of rotten fruits with pleasure. By the way, representatives of the sailing family, as well as familiar to all nymphalids, need sodium. The peacock eye, admiral or burdock in the summer can often be seen sitting on moist clay soils or whitewashed trunks of fruit trees. Butterflies also like to sit on sweating people. These are the ways to get salt.
Therefore, there is nothing complicated in how to care for a butterfly and how to feed it. For the preparation of nectar at home, you need 1/5 tsp. dilute honey in 2 tsp. water. The mixture is prepared in a socket, saucer or in a small lid from a jar. The insect is carefully taken across the abdomen and planted on the edge of the food container. A hungry butterfly immediately straightens the proboscis and begins to draw in "nectar." Meals can last from 2 to 15 minutes.
Overripe fruit butterfly feed is also prepared. A piece of pulp of an apple, pear, banana, mango, melon or watermelon is kneading in water to a liquid consistency. It is recommended to offer a pet food 2 times a day.
The task is complicated, but it becomes even more interesting if there is a desire to see with your own eyes how a magnificent butterfly will be born from a not very attractive caterpillar.
How to grow a butterfly from a caterpillar
To reproduce at home the full life cycle of these insects is quite difficult. Under natural conditions, males and females find each other by the smell of secreted pheromones, and complex ritual dances and courtship always precede mating. Even if you bring home individuals of both sexes, it is not a fact that they will breed. After all, females of each species lay eggs on certain plants that the caterpillar will feed on. For example, the peacock eye chooses hops, nettles, willow or raspberries for laying eggs.
Therefore, it is easier to find a butterfly caterpillar, carefully take it together with a leaf or twig and identify it in a container or insectarium. At the bottom of the tank you need to pour earth and you can put a snag.
In the larval stage, these insects are extremely voracious, so the caterpillar will need fresh leaves of its feed plant. At the end of the last molt, the butterfly pupates and becomes motionless. By the way, not everyone weaves a cocoon. In many species, the formation of adults can be observed through the shell of the pupa.
At home, this phase lasts 2-3 weeks, after which the shell breaks and a shriveled insect appears, which climbs onto a twig or other elevation. Under the influence of hydrostatic pressure, the capillaries of the wings are saturated with hemolymph, the butterfly spreads its wings and takes off.
Now you know how to care for a butterfly.