The orange trunks
Tiger-moth layers asleep on amber gum.
Norbert Nagel, Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany — CC BY-SA 3.0 · patano — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Shi Annan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Shi Annan — CC BY-SA 4.0
Scientifically day-flying tiger moths (Panaxia) — but in tiger orange and massed stillness they outshine most butterflies, and the folk name won a century ago. To children the difference is linguistic luxury — the scene enchants under any name.
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The Butterflies Valley is Rhodes' most famous natural phenomenon: a narrow green gorge of streams, small falls and wooden bridges — clothed June to September by millions of migrating Jersey tiger moths, drawn by the rare amber-resined sweetgum trees (zitia) to blanket trunks and rocks in sleeping orange-black layers by day. The sacred rule: no clapping, no shouting, no shaken branch — mass disturbance drains the fasting butterflies (they eat nothing all summer!) so they die before autumn's mating: silence here is literally species protection, and the wardens expel offenders. Outside the season the valley is a lovely shade-and-stream walk in itself (with a cheaper ticket) — the path climbing to the Kalopetra monastery above. With Filerimos its neighbour: Rhodes' complete green family day.
Tiger-moth layers asleep on amber gum.
Streams and small falls as a shaded stair.
Petaloudes, 85106 Rhodes