Catching up with pygmy marmosets
8. März 2019
Resuming pygmy marmoset’s research at Sacha Lodge
13. August 2026Walking into the “flying room” at the Sacha Lodge butterfly farm is like walking into a different world, of peace and tranquility, amid the cacophonous chorus of the surrounding jungle. As one of the largest butterfly farms in Ecuador, it is not only a garden where butterflies float in harmony with each other among the plants, but also a breeding center where close to 40 local species are bred and raised.
With countless butterfly species native to the Amazon – some endemic to Yasuni National Park, where Sacha Lodge is located on the banks of the Rio Napo – almost every jungle lodge offers butterfly tours, but Sacha is one of the few lodges that has a dedicated butterfly farm where you will be immersed in a whole world of butterflies.
Butterflies in all stages of life
One of the most fascinating things about these unique insects is their transformation from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly. As a full breeding center, the Sacha Lodge butterfly farm offers visitors a live exhibition conservatory to see these magnificent species at every stage of their metamorphosis.
Some of the most stunning butterflies you will see here are the:
- Glass-wing butterflies (Greta oto) – As caterpillars, they eat noxious plants that make them taste bad to predators, allowing them to grow into fantastically transparent adult butterflies.
- Blue morpho – probably the most recognizable and sought after sights on butterfly tours is the stunning blue morphos (Morpho peleides), with their 4-inch wingspan and two “brush-footed” front legs which it uses for sensing the environment rather than walking.
- Tiger longwings (Heliconius hecale) – With bright orange wings featuring black and white accented borders, these butterflies range all the way from Mexico through the Peruvian Amazon.
- Swallowtails – There are over 500 varied and colorful species of these butterflies in the Papilionidae family, and it owes its name to the forked appearance of its hindwings.
- Owl butterflies (Caligo martia)- These gentle giants have a wingspan between 2.5-8 inches and prefer to fly around the dusk hours. Since they cannot fly more than a few meters at a time, they depend on the lower vision of their predators at night for safety. The patterns on their wings is also a deterrent to predators.
