The Love For Insects

Not many people like insects and I used to be one of those who frown at the sight of them.

I have vivid memories of unfortunate close encounters with flying insects when I was young and I hated them. When I was about 14 years old, a beetle flew into my old Tanglin Halt flat and it flew straight at me! I found it on my pyjamas, yelled and quickly brushed it off. Then it came back and landed on my hair. Its persistence to be stuck on me was truly disgusting. I also had a habit of studying alone into late night. There was once I awoke (dozed off while trying to study for exam) to find the same type of beetle stuck on my leg. Ouch! Yuck!
It is not just the beetles, there were times when flying cockroaches came into my flat, and I had to activate either my mother, but usually my late grandmother to catch. Yes, they would catch it with their bare hands and did not mind the wriggling.

I still hate them pretty much, but I have developed a better opinion of insects. Well, not all of them are hideous looking - butterflies are much lovable and pretty. It all started when my husband brought my children to a butterfly farm. He decided to buy a few caterpillars to help them appreciate the amazing life cyle of butterflies. Yes, the scary looking crawlers. It took me several minutes to put aside my prejudgement to look at them in their eyes. Oh boy, they sure look as hideous as I have imagined. I tried hard not to reject them or to show my disgust for them in my children's presence.

I quickly googled about metamorphosis and found out the time taken for a caterpillar to become a cocoon and then a butterfly. We saw the caterpillars turning into cocoons after about a week and about another week later, a butterfly emerged from the cocoon. This butterfly is a Plain Tiger, a beautiful yellow and brown medium-sized butterfly shown in the blog. It got us all so excited. After its wings dried up, we took it to the nearby park to set it free. Following that, we witnessed a few other caterpillars turned into beautiful butterflies that bear no resemblance to its original form. The wonder of nature.

I went on to holding butterflies on its wings and allowing them to stand on my palm at several butterfly parks that we visited. A close encounter with insects out of free will! Of course, these brave acts were done in the presence of my children. The purpose is to teach them not to be afraid of insects.

Recently, my eldest went through a topic on Insects in school, and it further developed his interest for them. He learnt their names in Chinese and I had the opportunity to develop greater affinity with insects... This time, we found out how bees produced honey for us.

My love for butterflies has driven me to constantly look out for caterpillars in nearby parks. In fact, we caught 3 huge caterpillars recently, waited for them to become cocoons before snipping off the branch with the cocoon and bringing them home, releasing the butterflies after they emerged. We took pictures of the various stages of the process and turned it into a project on metamorphosis.

I, too, have metamorphosed!