The world-wide attraction franchise – known for promoting the ‘bizarre and unusual’ – chose to ‘immortalise’ Sam in one of their Ripley Cartoons after he tweeted his experience of successfully rearing some caterpillars.

The Kiss FM presenter, who graduated from the University in 2015 after studying Media Performance at the University’s Luton campus, found the insects on a bunch of broccoli he had ordered from Tesco during lockdown.

“I was about to cook my favourite vegetable of all time (broccoli) and after unwrapping it, to my surprise I found caterpillars inside! They’re really nice and we’ve ended up keeping one as a pet and naming him.” Sam Darlaston said on Twitter.

He decided to ‘adopt’ one of the critters (which he called Cedric) but after another Tesco delivery, he discovered more caterpillars hidden amongst the stems. He decided to look after these ones too and documented their development from caterpillars to pupae to butterflies on social media, before releasing them safely into the wild. One of the Cabbage White butterflies was even released live on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme, after the show’s host started following Sam’s story on Twitter.

This charming but unusual story caught the attention of Ripley’s staff who featured it in their daily Ripley Cartoon series earlier this month. Ripley’s has been rolling out their daily ‘fun facts cartoons’ since 1918.

A whole bunch of broccoli #butterflies! 🐛 @samd_official #BelieveItorNothttps://t.co/qMGKOKzj03 pic.twitter.com/yDhY3Bv2XR

— Believe It or Not! (@Ripleys) September 5, 2020

Talking to the Islington Gazette about why he decided to document this unusual story on Twitter, Sam said: “I think 2020 needed this kind of fun news!”

Earlier this year, Sam began evening voiceover work with E4 to complement his radio hosting role with Kiss FM. This career progression was something he discussed with second year Bedfordshire students when he was invited to the School of Media & Performance’s annual ‘performance in context’ Beds TV Day back in January.

For more information about the University’s School of Media and Performance and to explore the courses available, visit: 

www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/departments/media-and-performance/