Prolific Japanese photographer Kazuo Unno has shared over 1,400 videos of beetles, butterflies, and other insects in his books and on his YouTube channel. Since first studying insect behavior at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Unno’s love of rainforest insects has become the focus of his life’s work.
In these two videos, the butterfly fauna of Peru takes center stage. Above, a glittery green Caria mantinea, Lasaia agesilas, also known as a Glittering Sapphire, a brilliant blue and red Rhetus, and other winged beauties congregate to drink fluids and minerals from the boulders and wet soil.
Below, a Rhetenor blue morpho is surrounded by Diaethria clymena, a red, white, and black butterfly with a signature 88s and 89s on its wings. Unno writes that the Rhetenor is “said to be the world’s most beautiful morpho butterfly distributed in South America.”
“Especially Peruvian ones are said to be beautiful. The bright blue glitter can be seen from a distance of 100m or more. As it flaps its wings up and down, it looks like it’s continuously emitting blinking flashes.”
Follow Kazuo Unno on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Previously from Unno on TKSST: Thailand’s Green Dragontail Butterfly in slow motion.
Plus, watch more butterfly videos, including:
• Butterflies mud-puddling in the Amazon
• Butterflies and bees drinking turtle tears in the Peruvian Amazon
• What Gives the Morpho Butterfly Its Magnificent Blue?
• Witnessing butterflies emerge at the California Academy of Sciences
• Catching butterflies with the longest butterfly net in the world
This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.
Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.