Cyprus Mail 15 June 2020 - by Alix Norman
The CyHerbia enclosure is filled with fennel: “The caterpillars love the juicy leaves on the plant at this time of year,” says Miranda. “I find the eggs – they’re tiny little specks which tend to be very hard to spot – or sometimes two- or-three-day old caterpillars in the gardens of our park. Then I cut the branch they’re on, because if you find one there are bound to be more eggs on that branch – the Swallowtail lays loads of eggs at a time – and they hatch very quickly from eggs into larvae.”
At this time of year, butterflies are everywhere: fluttering through the fields, gracing our gardens and painting our parks with their fragile, multi-coloured beauty. Of course it’s not always easy to get a good look at these ephemeral insects – one step closer and off they flit to another flower! Unless, that is, you take a trip to CyHerbia Botanical Park, where a new breeding programme and a special butterfly enclosure mean you can now enjoy one of the island’s most beautiful butterflies.
“Butterflies are a symbol of delicate beauty, a miracle of nature,” says Miranda Tringis, the island’s best-known herbalist and owner of CyHerbia. “Did you know that they taste with their feet and their wings are actually transparent? Their wings are covered by thousands of tiny scales, which reflect light in different colours – the rainbow that we see!”
Long a lover of this stunning insect, Miranda began breeding butterflies on a small scale eight years ago. “I was at home, and noticed that there were a number of butterflies on the parsley plant on my kitchen windowsill. I created a makeshift enclosure by delicately draping netting over the plant so that my children – who were young at the time – could discover this miracle of nature. I do think,” she adds, “it’s these little things that put kids in touch with the natural world that unfolds before your eyes – when you teach your children to admire and love all aspects of nature it creates a sense of wonder, and that’s so important.”
Today, Miranda continues her passion on a larger scale, with a butterfly enclosure at CyHerbia. “It’s still fairly small compared to the professional, double-doored enclosures you see in England and the Netherlands, for example,” she says. “But it does allow visitors to observe the butterfly lifecycle up close.”
Focusing on the Swallowtail (or Papilio machaon, which takes its name from a physician and warrior who fought for in the Trojan Wars) the enclosure is at its best from early May to the end of July when the butterflies’ favourite plant is in flower. “The Swallowtail prefers one of two plants,” Miranda reveals. “Either fennel or parsley. And the funny thing is that the eggs which hatch on fennel produce butterflies that will die if they feed on parsley, and vice versa – they’re very true to their source of food!”
The CyHerbia enclosure is filled with fennel: “The caterpillars love the juicy leaves on the plant at this time of year,” says Miranda. “I find the eggs – they’re tiny little specks which tend to be very hard to spot – or sometimes two- or-three-day old caterpillars in the gardens of our park. Then I cut the branch they’re on, because if you find one there are bound to be more eggs on that branch – the Swallowtail lays loads of eggs at a time – and they hatch very quickly from eggs into larvae.”
Once hatched, the larvae – which are the size of a pinhead, and coloured black with a single orange spot – begin to eat. “And that’s all they do!” laughs Miranda. “For several days, they eat and eat, growing up to three times their own size over the course of each day. And then,” she reveals, “they begin to pupate – hanging from the ceiling of the enclosure in their cocoons…
“The butterfly emerges some days after that – the lifecycle is really very fast,” she explains. “I know which cocoon is going to emerge the day before – it becomes transparent; you begin to see the bright gold and the jet black colours of the butterfly’s wings within the cocoon, and you know that the next day the insect will appear. Swallowtails tend to emerge early in the morning and rarely at other times of the day: first light is their time of ‘birth’. They hang there for a few hours all new and wet and delicate, fluttering their wings to dry them, and then they’re off – immediately trying to fulfil their life’s purpose by finding a mate.”
While the butterfly enclosure is small, Miranda notes, it’s ideal in more than one way. “Not only does this allow our visitors to observe and learn about the butterflies at close hand, it also protects the creatures from predators. The chalcid wasp,” she notes, “is a real danger: it makes a hole in the cocoon, lays eggs in it and its larvae eat the transforming butterfly. If you get just one wasp in the enclosure, you tend to lose all your butterflies, so I always take a few cocoons and put them in separate glass jars, just in case! Strictly speaking,” she continues, “caterpillars are considered a garden pest, and people do often ask why we nurture such creatures. But my answer is always the same: there’s enough food to sustain all of creation and all creatures, so we’re happy to share with the butterflies.”
The CyHerbia butterflies are kept in the enclosure for one day after emergence. “Then we let them out into the gardens,” says Miranda, “where they can flit from flower to flower in the sun. Although if we have a male and female birth on the same day, I tend to keep them in the enclosure a little longer so they can mate in safety – you can tell the sexes apart,” she adds, “because the male is quite a bit larger than the female.”
While other species of butterfly (including the Large White, the Painted Lady and the Little Blue) and moth frequent the gardens, it’s the Swallowtail which is the most striking, Miranda believes. “We have all sorts of moths here – including the hummingbird moth which is easily mistaken for its namesake thanks to its size, its colour, its lengthy proboscis, and the speed at which it beats its wings – but it’s the Swallowtail butterfly we consciously breed. Protecting and preserving all of nature is what we celebrate here at CyHerbia. Mother Nature does her own thing, healing and nurturing regardless of what humans may do, and we’re always happy to teach new people about the wonders of wildlife – the healing plants, necessary predators, and beautiful butterflies which make our natural world such an incredible place to be.”
The CyHerbia butterfly enclosure will be at its best until mid-July. Visit https://cyherbia.com/ for more details
