Day 8 - Making a Puddling Pool and Polishing Turtles!

    Kaeli was back for today, and the first thing she did was show me how to make a 'puddling' pool. We found an area to place the pool and dug a sizeable hole so the rectangular container could sit flush with the ground. Once that was done, we patted dirt around the edges and added sand, a bit of dirt, and some pebbles. Then we went back to make a mixture of water and soy sauce, which would provide the butterflies with sodium. We dumped this mixture into the container and made sure there wasn't too much liquid so the butterflies wouldn't drown. 

    Once we did that, I did a butterfly release with another volunteer named Fran. There were a lot of butterflies that needed to be numbered, as they were included in the current Longevity Study, so we put them in a cage to be later numbered. We also discovered that one of the Atlas Moths from a recent shipment had hatched, which was unfortunate because their wings hadn't dried properly. They had to be euthanized, but for the other unhatched moths, we placed them in a space where they'd be able to dry their wings without becoming crippled. After removing all the butterflies from the chambers, we released them into the Conservatory, and I headed back down to the office. 

    At the office, Kaeli instructed me to feed the iguanas, cavefish, and tortoises. I went back down to the Conservatory's kitchen, prepped Nacho and the tortoises' food, and placed it out. For Charo (I am certain that is his name- it has to be!) I hand-fed him some parts of his food. He really loved the sweet potatoes, and in this excitement, he nearly bit my finger off! I sustained no injuries, thankfully. The last thing I did was feed the cavefish, and afterwards, I headed back to the office once again. 

Holding one of the torties

    When I arrived there was a meeting in progress, so I sat in on that until Kaeli showed me back down to the Conservatory to collect the tortoises and take them to the kitchen. It was time to polish the tortoises! Kaeli made sure the water was a little warmer than room temperature before placing them in the sink. I scrubbed two down with a toothbrush while Kaeli did the other one. Fun fact, when tortoises are doused in warm water, they poop! And it stinks! So that was fun. After they had a wash we used a towel to dry them off and moved on to moisturising. Kaeli located a jar of coconut oil, dug some out, and slathered it onto one of the tortoises. She made sure to moisturise the shell and the turtle's skin if they let you. Most of the time they just shrunk back into their shells. We let the tortoises run around for a while and then put them back into their enclosures. 

    The last task for the day was to glue some chrysalides to the boards that were on display. These chrysalides had actually been bred by John, who manages the pupa in the greenhouses. So Kaeli counted them all out and I glued them down. A few chrysalides were actually Birdwing butterflies, which I was super excited to see hatch. Once I had glued all of them down (and made sure they had the proper labels), Kaeli had me number the butterflies that Fran and I had previously put into one of the cages. For each one, I labelled the sex, the supplier, and the board number. I was able to correctly label the sex of each butterfly, which is much easier with some species compared to others. The males of this particular species had a narrow abdomen, and the females had a wider one with a slight divet. Once I dusted off the scales and placed a sticker on each wing of these butterflies, we released them into the Conservatory. 

Facts I learned: 

• Tortoises carry salmonella (one of the workers has contracted it from them before!)
• Charo has very sharp chompers