Qualla: Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free

Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Syced, CC0. Around a thousand butterflies swirl through a humid greenhouse in the hills west of Tokyo, landing on plates of nectar that the staff call "Butterfly Restaurants." This is the Insectarium at Tama Zoological Park, and the fact that a zoo built to showcase elephants and lions is equally proud of its blue glassy tigers and flower mantises tells you something about the place. Opened on May 5, 1958, as an overflow branch of the cramped Ueno Zoo in central Tokyo, Tama Zoo was designed around a radical idea: give the animals room to move. At 52 hectares, it is nearly four times the size of Ueno, and instead of iron bars and concrete pits, it uses moats and natural terrain to separate visitors from wildlife. The result is a zoo that feels more like a hike through four continents than a walk past cages.

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Image: Syced | CC0

Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free: Four Continents on a Hillside

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Su--May from London, UK, CC BY 2.0. Tama Zoo is divided into four zones, each designed to evoke the landscapes of a different part of the world. The Asiatic Garden holds Amur tigers, snow leopards, red pandas, and a herd of Przewalski's horses, the last truly wild horse species on Earth. The African Garden is home ...

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Image: Su--May from London, UK | CC BY 2.0

Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free: Anura's Long Life

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toshihiro Gamo, CC BY 2.0. The most remarkable resident at Tama Zoo is Anura, a male Asian elephant born in 1953 in what was then the Dominion of Ceylon. Imported to Japan in 1956, Anura first lived at Ueno Zoo before transferring to Tama when it opened in 1958. His name honors Anura Bandaranaike, the son ...

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Image: Toshihiro Gamo | CC BY 2.0

Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free: The Mole's-Eye View

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toshihiro Gamo, CC BY 2.0. Among Tama Zoo's most inventive exhibits is the Mole House, a man-made burrow constructed from glass-covered earth and metal tunnels. Visitors walk through dimly lit passages and peer through glass panels to observe Japanese moles and small Japanese moles tunneling through the so...

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Image: Toshihiro Gamo | CC BY 2.0

Tama Zoo: Where a Thousand Butterflies Fly Free: A Zoo That Walks Like a Forest

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Fg2, Public domain. Tama Zoo sits on hilly, wooded terrain in Hino, a residential city in the Tama region of western Tokyo. The park's trails wind uphill and down through groves of trees, and a visit here is genuinely physical -- comfortable shoes are essential. The station serving the park, Tama-Do...

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Image: User:Fg2 | Public domain