By akademiotoelektronik, 14/08/2022

In Colombia, identify the colorful multitude of butterflies

It had to be the birds, it was ultimately the butterflies.65 -year -old retirement agricultural, Juan Guillermo Jaramillo is passionate about all winged creatures flying in the exuberant Colombian nature.First fled with ornithology, his meeting, at the end of his camera, with the butterflies was an upheaval.

It is today the co-author of a single inventory, developed by an international group of scientists, which establishes that Colombia is the country housing the most species of butterflies in the world.

The list was published in June by the London Natural History Museum, a venerable institution which itself watches over the largest and oldest collection of these insects with shimmering pigments.

"Colombia butterflies, list of checks" lists to date 3.642 species in this country in South America with one of the richest biodiversity in the world.Or 19.4% of all known varieties on the planet.More than 200 of them only live in Colombia.

But here as elsewhere, deforestation, global warming, as well as intensive farming threaten the environment, and destroy the habitat of flying, pollinators and food source for birds and snakes.

- "Winged jewelry" -

M.Jaramillo is not a vulgar collector of butterflies surveying the jungle with his throat net."I have nothing to do with the traditional butterfly hunter, who kills the object of his passion, pierces her with a needle to pin her in a box," he explains to AFP during'A meeting at his home in Jardín (northwest)."I'm just not able to kill them".

M.Jaramillo, passionate photographer, has a unique database of 220.000 shots of lepidoptera.He alone identified 1.500 species in Colombia, almost half of the species identified.

For 15 years, M.Jaramillo walks Colombian forests and jungles in search of his little "winged jewelry".Which is not without risk in a country under the fire of the guerrillas, paramilitary, and other narcos for more than half a century.

"There are certain places where I am not going, simply because I'm afraid," he said.

Always the agile foot, he takes hollow paths and paths with his camera, a tripod and a strange mixture of his own invention: a bait based on shrimp.

After many tests, he discovered that this pinkish liquid, always made in the morning of her escapades, attracts the most butterflies.

That day, in the heart of a natural park in the Department of Antioquia (Medellin region), the rain has just stopped, lush nature this region with a tropical climate wakes up in humid and stifling heat.

M.Jaramillo spreads with a small sprayer its mysterious elixir with a pestilential smell on leaves and rocks flush with a torrent.

He also leaves little bits of cotton soaked in bait, which the butterflies "take for bird droppings".

"When butterflies land on a sheet, they stay there for a long time, like fashion engravings.And without bait, it would also be impossible to see certain species that live at the top of large trees ".

- Metamorphosis -

Previously, M.Jaramillo rather pinched for birds, which were his first photo models.

Like a caterpillar being chrysalide, his metamorphosis started with digital."Taking a good bird photo is very difficult, you need heavy and bulky goals.So I also photographed butterflies ".The images downloaded to his computer were a revelation, the photographer is amazed in front of so many shapes and colors.

He then jumps from a world of abundance - the birds - to an almost infinite world.Because the butterflies, day and night, constitute the group of most numerous insects on the planet, after the beetles, with nearly 160.000 known varieties.

"In Colombia, there may be twice as many butterflies as birds.In the Andes, there are approximately 10 to 15% of unknown butterflies, or without classification ", explains to AFP Kim Garwood, American author of five pounds on these insects and co-author of the" list ofverification".

Near his farm surrounded by forest, M.Jaramillo waits under a hot sun from dawn."The hot air helps support the flight of butterflies, while when it rains they put themselves under the leaves like a umbrella".

With bait, butterflies land en masse.A little saliva, and multicolored creatures are even landing on the photographer's nose.

If he is surprised by the colors of one of his models, he downloads the cliché in his database so that the experts can later classify it.

"With butterflies and moths, I have work for this life and ten others," says the sixty -something.