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All coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hi, I'm Ray Marie and welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers This is my friend Katie.

And today we are in the Huntsville Botanical Gardens in the Butterfly House.

As the rain said, we are in the pretty butterfly house, which is the largest open air butterfly house in the nation.

And here at the garden, we mainly deal with plants, but we love butterflies because plants and butterflies rely on each other for a healthy habitat.

Rain.

Do you know what a habitat is?

Kind of.

But can you tell me more?

I certainly can.

So a habitat is just all the things make up where you live.

So your habitat or my habitat could be our house, for example.

And a healthy habitat has four pieces of food, water, shelter and space.

So if our house is our habitat, our pantries have food, our sinks have water, our rooms have space for us to live in.

And the physical structure of our house provides shelter.

So just like our house is a healthy habitat for us, a garden like the one behind us is a healthy habitat for butterflies.

And we're going to talk about the different ways that plants provide the pieces of a healthy habitat to butterflies.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That sounds good to you.

Okay.

Awesome.

So before you do that, we're going to super quickly go over the pieces of a butterfly's lifecycle.

Okay, so butterflies lay eggs.

Eggs become caterpillars.

Caterpillars turn into chrysalis, which is the plural of chrysalis, and then crystallized hatch into butterflies which lay eggs all over again.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Okay.

So let's talk about how plants provide the pieces of a healthy habitat to butterflies.

Okay.

So do you remember the first stage of a butterfly lifecycle was Caterpillar?

No.

So close, though.

That's okay.

It's eggs.

Butterflies, eggs and butterflies lay their eggs on the undersides of leaves.

Right.

And so in that way, leaves provide shelter, which is one of the pieces of a healthy habitat.

Two butterflies.

What do you think that caterpillar or butterfly eggs might want to be sheltered from?

Probably other bugs.

Or just, like getting hurt from weather.

Or just like getting knocked down.

Those are some great ideas, and you're absolutely right.

So the leaf protects caterpillar eggs from things like rain or predators that might want to eat them or even that you've raised because eggs can get sunburned just like you and I can.

Right.

So then the egg hatches into a caterpillar.

And we have some caterpillar examples here.

Let's get our friend Spike out up here.

Yes.

Come here, little dude.

Oh, come here.

Do you want to hold him?

Yeah.

So this is Spike the go fritillary caterpr.

Yep.

Caterpillars hatch on the underside of leaves from eggs, and they eat leaves.

So leaves or plants provide food, which is one of the pieces of a healthy habitat for caterpillars.

So you can see in these leaves here, they're full of holes.

Right.

And that's because caterpillars have been munching away on them.

So caterpillars months and months and months, they get all big and fat and juicy and plump.

Right.

And then they become a chrysalis.

So this dude right here is becoming a chrysalis.

So the piece of a healthy habitat that plants provide for crystalize, which again is the plural of chrysalis, is space.

So you remember how our rooms provide us space to live.

Right.

Well, Chris, Lights needs space to become butterflies.

And so you can see he's attached to the bottom side of a twig.

So the twig is providing him space to become a chrysalis.

Does that make sense?

Okay, so let's put Spike back.

Let's put Mike back.

Mike, the chrysalis.

This guy will become my chrysalis.

This guy will become a chrysalis dude.

So Christmas is a really cool because.

Do you think that it's just a caterpillar inside a chrysalis?

I guess so.

But they have to do something to be a butterfly.

They do.

That's right.

So inside a chrysalis, you might think there's just a caterpillar.

But in actuality, the caterpillar dissolves into a kind of goo.

So this guy, when he becomes a chrysalis, will just turn into, like, green slime.

And that green slime is what, reforms into a butterfly.

So that's pretty awesome, right?

That is pretty awesome.

So do you remember when a chrysalis turns into a butterfly?

That's right.

A chrysalis does turn into a butterfly.

You're exactly correct.

And so plants provide space for a chrysalis.

But plants also provide food for butterflies, just like they provide food for caterpillars.

So caterpillars eat leaves, but butterflies eat the nectar from flowers.

So if we look around the butterfly house, we can see butterflies all around us eating the nectar from flowers.

So to recap, we provide shelter for eggs.

Yes, they provide food for caterpillars.

They provide space for crystallize.

Yep.

And they provide food for butterflies, right?

Yes, that's right.

Okay.

So butterflies eat nectar.

But besides butterflies eating nectar, they also collect pollen.

Do you know pollen is?

No, not really.

So pollen is the thing, like the yellow thing in the air that gives you allergies.

Oh, yeah.

But it also helps plants reproduce.

Right.

So butterflies, when they land on flowers to eat the nectar will collect the pollen on their legs and then also on their bodies.

They have very little legs and very little bodies.

And then when they go land on another flower, for example, they will distribute that pollen and that helps plants reproduce.

So that's called pollination.

And so butterflies help pollinate plants.

And what that means is that just like plants help butterflies reproduce by providing all the pieces of a healthy habitat.

Butterflies also help plants reproduce.

So they have a mutual relationship.

Just like if I give you food and you give me water.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Awesome.

So do you remember what the pieces of a healthy habitat are?

Food, shelter, water and space space space the hardest one began.

Think of nothing is being part of a healthy habitat.

If your rooms were full of stuff, you wouldn't have anywhere to live.

Right.

So you need space to live in.

Right.

And plants provide all of those pieces for the various life stages of a caterpillar.

So I've just realized something, actually.

So I haven't quite put these pieces of the life stage in order.

Do you want to help me put them in order?

Yeah.

Okay, great.

So we don't have any eggs to show you, because if you pick the leaf up or the leaf with eggs on it, it will hurt the eggs.

Right.

So we're going to pretend that this leave his eggs.

Okay.

So we'll put it here and we'll put him here.

Do you want to put the life stages in order for me?

Sure.

Okay.

So what's the first life stage of a caterpillar?

Eggs.

But obviously, we don't have eggs or leaves.

We have what we have.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have.

That's right.

Yeah, these are eggs.

Okay, so do you want to put those first?

Okay, so the first meaning over here.

That's right.

Good.

There we go.

Okay, so what's next?

Like Hatch and Caterpillar?

That's right.

So you can pick up that whole enclosure if you want and just move it on over.

Okay.

Careful.

Oh, perfect.

There we go.

Okay.

What's next?

That's exactly right.

I want to be careful.

That's okay.

You can see like this, lions are dried up.

They won't hatch.

So we can be as rough with them as we need to.

So these are our example slides right here.

You got to see grew on them almost.

Yeah.

So we actually attach them to this paper towel for demonstration purposes with the glue.

So that's what they do is.

Mm hmm.

And then what's the last stage of a butterfly's lifecycle?

Well, after they go into their chrysalis, they evolve into butterflies.

That's exactly right.

They become slimy, green goo And then they have to come out.

Butterfly.

Right.

Butterfly.

So the order of a butterfly lifecycle is egg.

Mm hmm.

Caterpillar.

Chrysalis.

Yeah.

Great job.

Thank you.

Do you want to help me release these butterflies?

Sure.

It's also fun.

Awesome.

So maybe you've heard that we can't touch butterfly wings.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's true.

But monarchs are a special kind of butterfly.

They migrate all the way from Canada to Mexico, so they're pretty tough.

So we can touch them in a very special way.

We can only touch the bottom of their wings because the bottom of their wings don't have little feathers.

And we hold them between two fingers just like this, so they don't flap around too much and hurt themselves.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

So do you want to hold this one between two fingers?

Yes.

Okay.

So right here is good.

Yeah, that's just good.

And then you can just let them go.

Wow.

There you go.

Yeah.

So we'll see you in a couple minutes because not only do Bugsy plants like we've talked about here, but plants also eat bugs.

And we have some of those plants here at the garden.

Wow.

Do you want to see those?

Yes.

Awesome.

when I look back on my STEM related careers, it began as almost as a chemist.

Even though I was trained as a biologist, I worked as a microbiologist and a chemist.

When it came to addressing problems with the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

After that, I worked in private in the private sector with an environmental engineering company and a civil engineering company.

But we we helped communities address their water and wastewater needs.

So we didn't involve toxicity testing, but also a lot of of bench laboratory work.

So a big variety of things where, again, you use math and chemistry and biology all in one to to really assist communities with problems that they were having with their wastewater and their water.

What drew me here to the Huntsville Botanical Garden was the opportunity to take my skills outside work in this beautiful setting, work with the public, work with my all of my botanist and gardener coworkers to to manage the trails and the natural areas here at the hospital botanical garden.

There are a lot of opportunities available now with the with the rise of everything from biotech to to more a lot more science applications.

And in agriculture, in technology and even even in things like, you know, if you're if you're a worker, you're a worker bee.

And in landscaping or in in any kind of turf management or anything or natural resource management, you definitely need to stay current in in what's going on with the changes that are out there.

And again, driven a lot by technology and the availability, the availability of new things to help us do tasks that have been around a long time.

Oh, my favorite part about the the natural, natural areas supervisor is being outdoors just about 100% of the time.

I was asked what percentage of the job I thought would be outdoors in the interview, and I said, I hope it's 100%.

And turned out to be just about right.

So we do a lot of work in the areas really to enhance the experience that our members and visitors have here, to look at the plants, to learn about plants, to make connections to plants, and to take that information home with them.

Hopefully to put it in their own residential landscaping, whether they're trying to just beautify an area for the purely for the esthetics or whether they're trying to attract pollinators or butterflies or be sort of backyard habitat replacement.

You're working at the bench.

You're working outdoors, whatever your STEM career might be, considering you get to do it all the time.

So that's the thing that I love being in the lab.

I love being in my outdoor lab.

Hi, I'm Raine and this is my friend Katie.

And we're here at the end of the MATTHEWS Nature Trail at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens.

That is exactly right.

So earlier today, we talked about how bugs eat plants, specifically how butterflies eat plants.

But rain.

Did you know that some plants also eat bugs?

Oh, I did.

Isn't that crazy?

So all around us, these plants, you can see here and here and here, those are called pitcher plants.

And they're a type of plant called a carnivorous plant.

And carnivorous plants eat bugs.

You might have heard of some carnivorous plants before.

Have you heard of any kinds of carnivorous plants?

Maybe.

Probably a few, yeah.

So you might have heard of Venus Flytrap.

So those are the most popular kind.

But her plants are another kind of carnivorous plant and they're especially cool because they're native to our very own state of Alabama.

So pitcher plants eat bugs for a very particular reason if you want to learn more about that.

Yes.

Awesome.

So first of all, let's bend down and touch the soil here.

Do you feel kind of how spongy and what it is?

That's right.

So this soil is kind of for years at home, spongy, wet, nasty.

The soil is called bog soil.

Bogs are areas in nature that are very waterlogged.

So bogs have soil that is very low in a nutrient called nitrogen.

Have you heard of nitrogen before?

Yeah.

So there's an ocean in the air all around us and there's also nitrogen in the soil.

And all living things need nitrogen because it's part of their DNA.

It's part of the building blocks of their DNA.

So plants mean nitrogen just as much as people.

And most plants get their nitrogen from the soil.

But pitcher plants and bog soil don't have a lot of nitrogen to get.

So they get their nitrogen the same way you and I get our nitrogen, which is by eating things.

So we get our nitrogen for our DNA from eating plants and animals and pitcher plants get their nitrogen from eating bugs.

Does that makes that that's awesome.

Right.

Okay.

So plants have a bunch of different adaptations that help them eat bugs.

Do you want to go over a few now?

Okay.

So this is an example of a pitcher plant right here.

So pitchers are actually modified leaves and the leaves grow in such a way that they trap bugs.

These appear they're just the flowers of the pitcher plant that help them reproduce.

Right.

So this down here is a pitcher.

This is right.

So one pitcher has or one pitcher plant has tons of pitchers.

Right.

And we'll go into why that is a little bit later.

So this whole thing is one pitcher plant now on the top of the pitcher.

Do you see these white spots right here?

Yeah.

So if you kind of look through them, you can see how the sun shines through them.

Almost like a stained glass window, right?

Yeah, right.

That's pretty cool.

So when a bug flie into the top of a pitcher, the all those stained glass little windows, those white windows look like the outside.

So when the bug tries to escape the pitcher, it instead flies into the side of those windows because it can't find the opening.

So those are called light traps, so that makes sense, right?

So what do those little white spots do?

Just to recap.

So when you see the bugs, they go inside and they kind of see through out the windows.

That's right.

They do.

And the fact that those windows are see through means that the bugs have a hard time escaping because they can't find the exit.

So besides that, we'll go to this picture here.

The rim of the pitcher has a sticky sweet nectar that attracts bugs.

So if you ever spilled sugar and seen ants crawl all over it before, so lots of types of bugs like things that are sweet and pitchers want to eat those bugs, so they secrete like a sticky, sweet nectar.

You can touch it and kind of feel it.

That attracts bugs, right?

Exactly.

So bugs are like, ooh, I want that nectar.

I'm going to crawl up to the rim and I'm going to eat it.

But because it's sticky, the mole gets stuck, right?

And they can't escape.

So besides that, moving a little bit further down, so we see that pitcher traps are like very long and skinny, right?

So we've talked about the light traps and we've talked about the nectar at the top, right?

So now we're going to move a little bit further down the pitcher so you can kind of stick your finger in there and feel.

But pitchers are kind of fuzzy on the inside.

Do you feel that?

Yeah.

So like a trap.

So those hairs only go in one direction.

So when a bud goes down into the pitcher, it can't come back out because it'll get hair stuck in it, almost like little splinters.

So if you ever, like, run your hand against the wrong grain of wood before, if you got a splinter, it kind of sucks, right?

Exactly.

So bugs can go down into pitcher plants, but they can't come back out because they'll get tons of little hairy splinters.

It's pretty gross.

Right.

So one of the last adaptations we're going to talk about that helps pitchers eat bugs is you can kind of see it if you look down it, but it's too far down for us to feel right now.

But even below those hairs, it's like way down here in the pitcher, it gets really waxy and slippery.

So when a bug gets all the way down there, it can't climb back up.

Instead, it slips down almost like a slide way down into the bottom of the pitcher.

Right?

So at the very bottom of a pitcher, there's something called digestive enzymes, right?

So when you eat something, where does it go wrong?

It goes to your stomach and then you poop it out, it goes to your stomach and then you prove it out.

That is exactly right.

So pitchers kind of like us have all our stomach uses that break down their bugs, their food all the way down here at the bottom.

Now, do pitchers have butts?

No, no, they don't have bites, do they?

Right.

They have mouths kind of up here, but they don't have butts.

So when you eat, you poop your food out.

Right.

But pitchers don't really have anywhere to put their food out, do they know?

They don't.

So what happens instead is a pitcher just fills up with dead bugs and dead bug parts.

Right.

And when a pitcher is full, that's when it dies and it eventually falls off and the plant grows a new pitcher.

So when we think about a pitcher plant, this whole thing is a pitcher plant, not one of these.

This is just a pitcher trap.

And you can see this one's kind of dead at the top.

That's because it's filled up with bugs and poop.

So it's already eaten.

Exactly.

Do you want to maybe pull apart a pitcher and see what's inside?

Okay.

So this is one that is very dead, right?

So you can see how dry and crusty it is.

So that means that it's very easy for us to break open, but also that all the poop is kind of dried up.

But what we can do is, do you see, that's like kind of a little beetle right there.

Do you want to hold it?

Yeah, that's kind of what's inside.

That's kind of what it's digested.

Exactly.

Didn't have any way for it to get rid of.

Exactly.

So if we move all the way down here, we can see even more digested bugs kind of gross.

Right.

Okay.

So for the next one, which is kind of wet, I'm going to give you some gloves to put on cause it's kind of stinky.

Does that sound good?

Okay, here you go.

Of course.

And then I'm going to pull out my shears to cut down the center.

Can't wait to feel what's inside.

Oh, yeah, it's pretty exciting.

And you can kind of feel where it's full to you.

So if you feel up here, it's hollow.

But if you pinch right here, you can see it's full of bugs, right?

You can kind of.

Yeah, yeah, you can.

Right.

Okay.

So this picture is a little newer.

You can see it's not dried out all the way down, right?

Totally dried out.

Part of the way down.

So means that it's going to be a little fresher.

Now, while we dissect this pitcher, let's go down and remind each other of the ways that pitchers catch bugs.

Right?

So up here at the top, you can kind of see, but it's easier to see on here.

What's the first one?

We talked about how pitchers catch bugs.

Okay, so they have this on here and like on pitcher pitchers, they have this sticky nectar on the top.

They do.

It attracts bugs.

So they want to go inside it and they want to get it for themselves.

But then the pitcher plants actually eat the bugs and then, you know, they turn into that.

That's exactly that's exactly right.

So here right now.

Not right now because it's dry, but here and here, there's a sticky nectar.

Now, do you remember anything about these white spots on the pitcher so when they're kind of see through almost.

Mm.

So the bugs when they go in there they see through this and it almost acts like kind of like stained glass.

That's right.

And they get confused and they get trapped.

Yeah, exactly.

So moving on down the pitcher, the next thing we talked about, you can actually see really well on this dead pitcher here.

Do you see those hairs?

Yeah.

Do you see how they only really go in one direction?

Yeah.

Isn't that crazy?

So do you remember what happens if the bugs try to go the wrong direction against the hairs?

Well, they can't go back up necessarily, so they'll just get even better.

That's right.

They'll get some nasty, hairy splinters.

Right.

And so you can actually see the hairs, the best on the dead ones.

You can see how they all point down this way instead of up this way.

Right.

So it's leading the bugs down into the pitcher.

So now we're going to keep we're going to start cutting down the pitcher.

I just got it started with my shears.

You can see the beginning of some you see bug parts.

Ooh, look at that.

Do you see that?

Yeah.

It's pretty nasty, right?

Very nice.

This picture, it looks like it got some leaves caught up in there.

Let's see.

Let's keep on peeling.

Oh, there we go.

Oh, do you see?

Right.

So do you remember past the hairs?

What happens to the pitcher?

Past the hairs.

Obviously, there's no way.

You know, like for their poop or all the food to probably go out of them.

So pass the hairs.

This is the scent.

So they have to stay there.

They do.

And you remember what's like in the very bottom of the stem.

It's digestive juices, right?

So is your stomach to see?

No.

What's it full of water.

It's full food and full of acid.

t?

Acid that breaks exactly.

So pitchers have stomach acid in them, too.

Luckily, their acid is not quite as acidic as our stomach acid, so we can touch it without hurting ourselves.

But as we keep moving down.

Do you see those bugs?

Yeah.

Do you want to maybe go through and see if you can identify any of the parts and tell us what the pitchers eaten?

Okay.

Okay.

Here, if you need help, I have a little pair.

Tweezers.

Can you pull some of those black things out from it?

I certainly can.

So I would say this piece looks like a piece of an ant skeleton.

Yeah, I mean, maybe like an arm, but, like, kind of crushed up.

Mm hmm.

That's true.

So ants do or pitchers do really like ants?

Ants like sweet things.

We talk about that sticky, sweet nectar, right?

Exactly.

So pitchers eat a lot of ants because answer attracted to the sticky sweet nectar.

So actually only some bugs are attracted to sweet, sticky things.

Some bugs are attracted to things that smell really, really bad.

Have you ever seen flies like flying around something dead?

Right.

So not only is there, like a sticky, sweet nectar that attracts some bugs, the smell of the dead bugs in the bottom of the pitcher actually attracts other types of bugs.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

So dying bugs attract more bugs for the pitcher to eat.

And actually, if we kind of put our noses in here, we can see what it smells like.

Oh, I know.

That's pretty crazy, right?

Okay, so let's keep on dissecting down.

You just keep kind of pulling her apart.

More of us, so you can see how at the top, it's like, way easier to see those bug parts, right?

Like there's a leg, there's a wing, there's a head.

But as you get further down, the bugs get more and more digested because there's more stomach acid.

Right.

And as we get like all the way to the bottom of the pitcher, they're not even recognizable as bug parts anymore.

They're just look like poop.

And that's basically what pitchers are, right?

Like when you digest food, it turns into poop.

So when pitchers digest bugs, it turns into plant poop.

Most people don't think of plants as being able to poop, but they definitely can.

Right?

The problem is that pitchers don't have anywhere for that poop to come out, and so they just fill up with poop and dye and then grow another pitcher, which is pretty crazy.

So we get we can keep going down.

This is a long pitcher and you can see there's bugs out there all the way down.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, right.

There's so many.

So when you think of a pitcher plant, where do you think it lives?

Probably.

I mean, when I think of it, I would think of it as more kind of an exotic space.

But I guess here it grows right here in Alabama.

Yeah, they do.

So these are really cool because they grow right here in Alabama.

We have some species in this bed that are only native to three counties in Alabama.

Did you know that there are plants this cool in your very own backyard now?

I didn't, but I'll definitely keep looking.

Yes, you should.

And you should definitely come back and visit us again.

We would love to have you and everybody at home.

You guys should come visit us, too, here at the Huntsville Botanical Garden.

These put your plants at the end of the Mathews Nature Trail and Purdy Butterfly House.

Admission is free if you buy garden admission.

So come see us.

We'd love to have you.

Thank you so much.

We'll see you next week on Alabama and Explorers.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM Explorers.

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Next season as Alabama's STEM Explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Hawley, champions of servant Leadership.