2640.bw.XP.Vlinder.totaal23.def.drij_2640.bw.Vlinder 26-06-12 17:57 Pagina 9
Foreword
This is the first book of an intended series on the butterfly fauna of Suriname. This part is meant to provide background data and to introduce the reader to the butterflies of Suriname. There are three groups of people for which this book is meant: the people of Suriname, tourists and other interested nonprofessionals, and students of biology. During the process of writing, it has become a bit of an unconventional book. We originally intended to write an identification guide to the common butterflies of Suriname, i.e. species likely to be seen by an average tourist on a three-week trip, supplemented by some species of special interest. Suriname is a wonderful country with great people, beautiful butterflies, many other animals and plants as well. All of these make for great tourist appeal. For many people on such a trip, however, it is their first encounter with the rainforest. For some, this turns out to be a disappointment. They are, on the one hand, primed with adventurous or fantastic stories of extraordinary animals and plants; and, on the other hand, by dismal articles on deforestation, global warming and similar themes, suggesting a sense of urgency to visit the forest ‘before it is too late’. People pay a lot of money for a visit, only to find that they see ‘green, green and green everywhere’, occasionally interrupted by an insect or a bird call, and end up wet, muddy and tired. ‘Is this all,’ they wonder ‘and worth all this trouble and money?’ There is one phenomenon that is usually not mentioned in advertisements for tourist trips: most species in the rainforest are rare and seldom seen. Some of them, like howler monkeys and birds, you may hear, you may see tracks or droppings of others like the jaguar, but most remain hidden. There are at least 1,300 species of butterflies in Suriname and most of them are rare, which means that there are not many individuals of a given species at a certain point in time. Chance, therefore, is a major factor in spotting a species or not. A visit to the rain forest, however, can be extremely rewarding and fill you with a pervading sense of awe and admiration. For this, two things are essential: you have to be patient and pay attention to detail. If you do that, there are treasures to be found around every corner. For life in the forest is hidden. It is a place where every species has to go to great lengths to survive. Over millions of years, life forms have adapted and become specialized to an extent that is hardly seen in temperate climates. The diversity of life is gigantic and, even today, not yet fully comprehended. Imagine a 5 km stretch of track through the forest, for example the Brownsberg 9