Peter Smetacek has done for butterflies what few others in India have done. He is the founder of the Butterfly Research Centre in Bhimtal in Nainital, Uttarakhand, and is known as the butterfly man of India.
The lepidopterist has dedicated his life to conservation of butterflies and moths, amassing one of the largest private collections of them in India. His passion for butterflies goes back to his childhood, and he has been studying them for as long as he remembers. His father, Fred Smetacek, a central European immigrant, had established an insect collection at their home in 1946, long before Peter was born. After World War II, the family moved to the hills of Uttarakhand, eventually relocating to Jones Estate in Bhimtal in 1951. It was here that Smetacek’s fascination with butterflies found wings. Surrounded by international butterfly experts who trooped into their house to meet his father, young Smetacek absorbed the knowledge like a sponge.
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