Catching up with pygmy marmosets
8 mars 2019
Resuming pygmy marmoset’s research at Sacha Lodge
13 août 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.
