WHAT’S HOT TO WATCH TODAY
APPARENTLY, your average blue morpho butterfly, native to Central and South America, lives for a total of
115 days. Hardly seems worth the hassle, does it?
Even so, THE SECRET LIFE OF THE ZOO (8pm, Channel
4) finds Chester’s staff chuffed to bits following the birth of a morpho male and female. They’re even given names to these two. The bloke butterfly is christened Peanut, while the girl butterfly is named Mucuna.
The reason for such excitement, I should explain, is that they’re endangered. These butterflies are, I mean, not the staff. And so the plan is that the zoo will start to build its own collection. “We’re hoping we can create a self-sustaining population,” one of the keepers explains.
Like I say, though, there’s precious little time to waste. Your average blue morpho’s entire life story, start to finish, can be summed up, in the words of this keeper, by: “Find food, mate, lay eggs, die…”
And if the mating bit just isn’t happening? Ah, well, in that case you encourage the butterflies to get drunk. And, no, I’m not making that up. ELSEWHERE tonight, in the latest instalment of living history series
(8pm, BBC2), our modern-day pupils are getting a taste of education 1970s-style. Or, more accurately, the more extreme examples of it, which saw traditional teaching methods scrapped in favour of pupil power. “I think we can start by creating some new school rules,” head teacher Sue announces to the kids (having just insisted they must call her by her first name from now on). “Any ideas…?”