Butterfly Valley

Butterfly Valley

BUTTERFLY VALLEY

FETHIYE / TURKEY

Butterfly Valley opens onto a cove near Fethiye on Turkey's southwest coast. This deep steep-sided valley has a floor of approximately ten hectares in area where almost all the butterfly and moth species of the Mediterranean coastal region are to be found, making it an open-air natural history museum. The abundance of lepidoptera is owing to the humid microclimate created by waterfalls in the valley, and also to the hundred or so different plant species found here. The butterfly which inspired the valley's name is the so-called leopard butterfly (Euplagia quadripunctaria), one of the loveliest members of the Arctiidae family. Between June and October hundreds of these butterflies gather in a large colony here.