There are animal lovers and then there is this dude from the United Kingdom.
Sam Darlaston planned to have broccoli for dinner but after finding a small green caterpillar curled up inside, he decided to keep it and care for it.
Hey @Tesco I was about to cook my favourite vegetable of all time (broccoli) and after unwrapping it, to my surprise, found caterpillars inside! They’re really nice and we’ve ended up keeping one as a pet and naming him. but just as a heads up, some of your broc has c-pillars?? pic.twitter.com/3VLIQAEogG
— Sam Darlaston (@samd_official) June 11, 2020
According to Insider, the 27-year-old TV and radio presenter didn’t want to throw the caterpillar out so, he kept it as a pet instead.
Learning about how to care for caterpillars on WikiHow, Darlaston carefully kept his new green friend inside a Tupperware.
In case anyone is interested, the name we’ve gone with is Cedric, he’s from Spain (at least we assume so because the broccoli is) and he dances after eating spinach and broc all day long ??? pic.twitter.com/tO1EyMgeG1
— Sam Darlaston (@samd_official) June 11, 2020
"I followed the instructions and put it in a Tupperware with holes in the top," he said.
"My housemates were really on board and we named him Cedric. We were kind of excited and weirded out, all at the same time,” he told Insider.
Cedric, an instant friend
He posted a video of Cedric on Twitter and even got a refund from Tesco for the caterpillar infested broccoli.
Darlaston then went out to buy more broccoli with the refund but – you guessed it – he found more caterpillars instead.
So then Cedric gained six friends – Broc, Olly, Croc, Janine, Carlos and Slim Eric.
SO IT TURNS OUT THAT THIS BROC CONTAINS ANOTHER 5 CATERPILLARS????!!!! 5!!!!! Also it turns out that THIS... is now a caterpillar thread pic.twitter.com/7M0UIcUxrU
— Sam Darlaston (@samd_official) June 11, 2020
The journey of the seven caterpillars were then documented by Darlaston on Twitter gaining a lot of attention from netizens.
"All of a sudden we had these things wiggling around and we just became really obsessed with them.
"We named them, we'd get them out and let them walk around. This is lockdown, you gotta do what you can to keep occupied!" he said.
When the babies grew up
Things got even more exciting when the caterpillars entered the transition stage of metamorphosis just a few days later.
Cedric was the first to change.
Seeing as it’s a Thursday SHALL WE HAVE UNSEEN CATERPILLAR THROWBACK FOOTAGE!? (To 11 days ago) when Cedric was the only one who’d cocooned and I was getting weirdly attached to Broc and Olly ???? #tbt pic.twitter.com/VvtkI44k3h
— Sam Darlaston (@samd_official) June 25, 2020
"It was really amazing, but also quite shocking at first.
"When the first one cocooned, I was like, is it dead?"
"Cedric, the oldest, he was there cocooning. Once that happened with him, I understood what was happening with the rest of them."
By June 22, six of the seven caterpillars had become cocoons except for Broc.
"It was cool cause they were all doing it in different stages.”
The full transition
On June 21, Cedric emerged as a butterfly. How cool is that!
"It was quite sad!" Darlaston said. "But I'm just happy now that they've all survived it. It was 18 days, and I wanna do it all again."
HERE HE IS!!!! WE HAVE THE FINAL BROCCOLI BUTTERFLY! 7/7 all hatched (not the right terminology but yolo) ??? good morning Slim Eric, you took ya sweet time ?☀️ pic.twitter.com/6pJ6OuGHZ5
— Sam Darlaston (@samd_official) June 28, 2020
"The most interesting thing about me is gone now!" he said.
What a strange start to a beautiful story.