A curious cat has gone viral as he showcased his ongoing obsession with his owner’s new hobby: raising butterflies.
Brooke Kimball, 47, lives in Utah and is the proud owner of Oliver, who she described to Newsweek as “the funniest cat” who “entertains us non-stop.”
Recently, Kimball bought a butterfly-growing kit, which allows people to raise butterflies and watch their life-cycle, from caterpillar to pupa and adult butterflies.
“It’s a neat thing to watch,” she said—and Oliver clearly agrees, as millions have now seen his obsession with the new arrivals to his home.
“The first butterfly that emerged caught my cat Oliver’s eye,” Kimball explained.
“He instantly became obsessed with them. He constantly begged for them and watched them.”
Butterflies begin life as an egg, usually laid on plants, so the hatched caterpillar—also known as a larva—can begin eating right away. The caterpillar then pupates, creating a cocoon around itself, and breaks down inside to reform into the adult butterfly.
This transformation can take anywhere from a week or a year, depending on the species of butterfly, according to Butterfly Conservation.
Kimball regularly shares videos of Ollie to her TikTok account @brookenancekimbal, and one video showed the orange cat meowing loudly at the door to where the butterflies are kept, demanding entry.
He continued roaring until Kimball opened the door, at which point he sprinted inside, jumped up on the desk, and watched the creatures intently, with more than 2.6 million viewers watching the unusual scene.
In another, shared on April 25 and viewed 35,000 times, Oliver sat on a chest of drawers, with the butterflies contained in netting, and couldn’t take his eyes off them.
He touched the netting with his paw, sniffed at it and began grooming himself, before locking onto the insects again, at one point even licking the netting.
Kimball was watching carefully, and warned him when he appeared to get too boisterous with the net, pushing it close to the edge.
She wrote in the caption: “Just a little play time with his friends! They are all emerged now so will be released outside very soon.”
She added: “Oliver has been VERY entertained. We just have to supervise all interactions!”
TikTok users loved it, one writing: “Those are his friends!”
“Ollie wants a butterfly snack,” another laughed, as one suggested he “needs a butterfly toy.”
Plenty pointed out the way Ollie was sitting at the start of the video, as one described it: “I love when they hunch with both their feet in the middle like that,” and another wrote: “The kitty sitting like a hooman!”
One user asked: “Did he like the caterpillars too?”, but Kimball explained he “didn’t notice it at all until the fluttering wings started to happen.”
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