In the Papiliorama, over 1 000 butterflies fly freely around in a tropical garden. With their dazzling colours and various shapes and sizes, they offer an enchanting ballet. The other stages in the butterfly’s fascinating life cycle can also be discovered: the hatching of a butterfly from its pupa in the emerging chamber or the eggs and caterpillars in the terrariums. The climate in the dome transports visitors into the fascinating world of the tropics. About 150 tropical plant and 30 ani­mal species can also be dis­cov­ered. Since 1989 the Papil­io­ra­ma has been run­ning a nature reserve in Belize. Jun­gle Trek is an authen­tic copy of these rich trop­i­cal habi­tats and offers an excit­ing hike through the trop­i­cal for­est. The trop­i­cal for­est exhi­bi­tion inte­grat­ed into the dome encour­ages reflec­tion on the fate of these unique habi­tats and provides an insight into our over­seas nature con­ser­va­tion project.

The Noc­tura­ma is a world­wide unique exhi­bi­tion: the translu­cent roof of the dome fil­ters the nat­ur­al day­light and cre­ates a full moon night atmos­phere inside. The reversed day and night rhythm makes it pos­si­ble to take a noc­tur­nal walk in the mid­dle of the day and observe the mys­te­ri­ous, noc­tur­nal ani­mals of the trop­i­cal forests. Along the paths, you will dis­cov­er sloths, tree por­cu­pines, night mon­keys, armadil­los and many oth­er ani­mals.

The Papil­io­ra­ma is also com­mit­ted to famil­iar­iz­ing vis­i­tors with local nature and show­ing them the impor­tance of intact habi­tats and bio­di­ver­si­ty. There­fore, only native plants grow on the out­door premis­es, and new and valu­able dry and wet habi­tats are con­stant­ly being cre­at­ed. Numer­ous native ani­mal and plant species have already set­tled in the new­ly cre­at­ed biotope. The Euro­pean Pond Tur­tle (Emys orbic­u­laris) is the only indige­nous tur­tle species. This species used to inhab­it all slow-flow­ing water sur­faces rich in veg­e­ta­tion in the whole of Switzer­land. Today only two pop­u­la­tions are left, prob­a­bly the result of released ani­mals. Their dis­ap­pear­ing is due to intense hunt­ing over cen­turies on the one hand, but also due to habi­tat destruc­tion. Since a few years, the Papil­io­ra­ma Foun­da­tion has been involved in a rein­tro­duc­tion project for the Euro­pean Pond Tur­tle. From Spring to Autumn, the tur­tles can be observed sun-bathing. (Further information: www.papiliorama.ch).