The famous Valley of Butterflies in Paros is located in a short distance (5 km) south of Parikia, on the road to Aliki. The area has plenty of running waters and lush vegetation, an ideal home for hundreds of butterflies moving here during the summer months. The scientific name of butterfly is Panaxia Quadripunctaria of Arctiidae genous and differs from usual butterflies. It belongs to moths. These along with the butterflies are the two subfamilies of Lepidoptera.

At the entrance of the "valley" there is a cafe-bar where you can enjoy a drink or coffee in an exceptional natural environment. You can admire the butterflies from 9 am until 8 pm, paying a nominal ticket designed to meet the revenue needs of the maintenance and storage area. The "butterflies" as the valley is called, is a habitat covered, in contrast to the surrounding areas, with many trees and shrubs. Towering cypress, plane trees and Agrilia, laurel and carob trees and lots of fruit trees, all embraced by lush green ivy. The vegetation is lush, the dew rises from the spring and the light of the sun reaches the ground through the thick leaves.

The butterflies here are all of the same kind and their colour is brown - black with yellowish margins and strips when they stand and two red rear wings when they fly. The butterfly in its growing sustains four distinct stages known as metamorphosis (egg - larva or caterpillar - pupa or chrysalis - mature insect). In this last stage the butterfly appears in the valley during the summer months. This massive movement is gradual. Begins in mid-June and ends in August. In September, the females leave the valley, traveling only at night, go to drop their eggs in areas with shrub vegetation of evergreen sclerophyllous plants. Each female gives birth to about 100 eggs, smaller than a millimetre and then dies.