Magic Garden in Bali is an enchanting insect wildlife park

In Bali, there are about a dozen zoos and wildlife parks where you can see and, in some cases, interact with exotic Indonesian fauna like the Sumatran elephant, orangutan and Komodo dragon.

But there is only one place on the island where you can play with one of the biggest insects on the planet. It’s called Magic Garden and it also happens to be the only wildlife park in Bali that has not yet been put on a ‘no go’ list by animal welfare groups in Australia for being unethical and irresponsible.

You can visit as a member of the public or on a half-hour guided tour.

The first few stops on the tour are a bit meh. There’s an orchid greenhouse containing around 500 kinds of orchids. A rainforest greenhouse with around 400 jungle plants and a dragonfly pond that doesn’t seem to have any dragonflies.

The volume on the fun meter increases exponentially at the next stop, Biota Lab, a sterile white room where science nerds in lab coats breed butterflies. In nature, only about 5 per cent of butterfly eggs become fully formed butterflies. But here the survival rate is ten-fold.

Butterfly eggs, which come in small clusters, are separated with tweezers and placed in small fish tanks where birds and other insects can’t eat them. There, they transition into caterpillars and spend a week or two stuffing their faces with leaves until they transition again into cocoons. The science nerds then step in again and carefully hang the cocoons on strings set inside a big rectangular glass enclosure where the cocoons hatch into butterflies – a fascinating metamorphosis most people are unlikely to ever see in the wild.

The lab also has an insect petting zoo where stick creatures up to 30cm are allowed to crawl up your arm and shirt. Getting so close to these clever insects that use camouflage and the art of stillness to fool predators into thinking they are just twigs is like seeing an elephant or lion for the first time. You’ll never again think of insects as just pests.

The next stop on the tour is a small butterfly enclosure where horny male butterflies and fertile female butterflies mate on the leaves of flowering plants. There are 15 or 16 different species of butterfly here, though they all know not to get it on with members of other butterfly species.

More than two-thirds of the butterflies bred at Magic Garden are released into the wild. The rest, about 100 butterflies per day, are released into a second, bigger enclosure.

Taking part in a release with a guide who will show you how to delicately help newly hatched butterflies fly out of a small net box is the highlight of any visit to Magic Garden — a magical experience.

“Now you know where the name came from,” said our guide.

fact file

+ Magic Garden is part of Nuana Creative City on Jalan (street) Galiran in Nyanyi, about 90 minutes drive from the international airport or half an hour’s drive from Canggu

+ Entry to Nuana is $5. Magic Garden tours are $15 per person

+ The best time to visit the garden is between 4 pm and 6 pm when it’s not so hot

+ See nuanu.com