Neotropical Butterfly Farm

With our rented air conditioned car we visited the Neotropical Butterfly Farm in Lelydorp, a village near Paramaribo.

 

Back in 1996, Amira Mendieta-Eriks, who originally comes from Ecuador, and her husband Ewout Erik, started the butterfly business " Neotropical Insects".  It only opened to the public in 2010.

 

This is the first butterfly farm in Suriname and also one of the largest in South America.  

There are more than 20 different kinds of butterflies grown mainly for export to foreign butterfly gardens.

 


Before the guided tour we wandered around the landscaped butterfly garden, complete with waterfalls, wooden bridges, benches, beautiful rock formations and butterflies.  Central to the facility, there was an enormous netted enclosure full of butterflies that were flying all around us.

The whole process from egg to caterpillar to pupa to butterfly was explained by our English-speaking guide.   

 

She explained that each butterfly eats only one special plant and much of their efforts are involved with planting and growing these plants.  We saw where the pupa were sorted and readied for shipment. The guide gave Emily one of the cocoons to bring back to the boat and watch it hatch.  She explained which end to hot glue to a support and the importance of giving it enough room to unfurl its wings.  

 

 
Besides butterflies they had an insect museum with thousands of butterflies, moths and insects displayed.  Upstairs they had painted a 360 degree panorama of Surinamese wildlife. The room was 3 meters high with a diameter of 14 meters making the painting almost 40 meters long and was well done.

 
We ate lunch in the restaurant within the Butterfly Farm and it was quite good and not expensive.

 They also have turtles and snakes.

 

We also visited the Paramaribo Zoo to see some local animals. This relatively small zoo was a great place to spend a few hours. They had a petting zoo, playground, monkey habitat, anacondas and many birds and animals in cages. 

Although the cages were small compared to many big zoos we have seen, the animals seemed well cared for and fed.  We enjoyed seeing a capybara (the largest rodent in the world), Bengal tiger, a frisky river otter and a giant anteater.

We continue to work on small boat projects, collect rainwater and keep the floating water plant islands off the anchor chain as they move back and forth with the tides.  The internet WiFi is good here and we are surfing the net and watching movies.  ‘Mirror Mirror’ with Julia Roberts received a high score from the crew of Emily Grace.  We will probably make the 3-day passage to Tobago in early August and hope to spend a month there before moving to Trinidad for some boat maintenance and repairs.


Tom