Butterfly feeding (how to) - Apache Fritillary

A female Apache Fritillary (Speyeria nokomis apacheana) is placed on a plastic cap filled with 10% sugar and water solution and nudged until she senses it with the "taste buds" on her feet and begins feeding. She uncoils her tongue and feeds for about 90 seconds. She is one of two females taking part in the Apache Fritillary life cycle documentary (just started) to be finished some time next year (with luck!).

The soundtrack is "Cold Fusion (CD Ver*)" from the "TimeShift" CD by Technician (yours truly), album and single track available on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/timeshift/id416810514 full artist discography and CDs available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com

More Lepidoptera video, photos and documentation can be found at JCMDI.COM.

Enjoy!

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[leobluesy]

Fascinating....!

[jcmegabyte]

I thought this might be interesting to show, and useful for people who find tired or injured butterflies and want to feed them until they recover... Thanks for checking it out :-)

[Fernito69]

Nice video! I'm a moth breeder, but have no experience with butterflies. How do you do for the butterflies to not fly away? I mean, when I find one in the wild I can't get closer than 3 ft. and they will quickly fly away.

[jcmegabyte]

Butterlies are somewhat cold-blooded, and like to warm-up before they fly. They are fairly docile when they're cold, and also when they're feeding - so long as you move slowly around them. Once this butterfly has finished feeding and warms-up under the light, it will no doubt want to go flying around soon afterwards! :-)

[Roserietta]

Well.... I had to euthanize Curly. He was suffering. He kept flapping, and he couldn't fly. It broke my heart to see him topple over and be unable to get up. Thanks anyway for trying.

[jcmegabyte]

Sorry to hear that... Unfortunately, mother nature is one tough mamma as we know all too well, and in nature very few of the hundreds of eggs survive to be a healthy adults, for one reason or another. Hopefully you'll get some healthy ones next time around! :-)

[Fernito69]

@jcmegabyte Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate it! :)

[jcmegabyte]

Too concentrated will kill them, so if in doubt, mix it really weak (especially if you are using honey) and they will just drink more and epell the excess water. I would only use 5% honey. Plain white granulated suger is a safer bet.

[AltAirPilot517]

How do you know what the ratio of sugar to water is? (I'm trying to make honey solution but I don't want it to be too concentrated).

[jcmegabyte]

That sounds like a good idea too! :-)