| Summary: | Amazonia comprises a mosaic of contrasting habitats, with wide environmental heterogeneity at local and regional scales. In central Amazonia, upland forest (<i>terra firme</i>) is the predominant forest type and seasonally flooded forests inundated by white- and black-water rivers (<i>várzea</i> and <i>igapó</i>, respectively) represent around 20% of the forested areas. In this work, we took advantage of a natural spatial arrangement of the main vegetation types in central Amazonia to investigate butterfly assemblage structure in <i>terra firme</i>, <i>várzea</i> and <i>igapó</i> forests at the local scale. We sampled in the low- and high-water seasons, combining active and passive sampling with traps placed in both the understory and canopy. <i>Terra firme</i> supported the highest number of butterfly species, whereas <i>várzea</i> forest provided the highest number of butterfly captures. The high species richness in <i>terra firme</i> may reflect that this forest type is floristically richer than <i>várzea</i> and <i>igapó</i>. <i>Várzea</i> is a very productive environment and may thus support a higher number of butterfly individuals than <i>terra firme</i> and <i>igapó</i>. Most butterfly species (80.2%) were unique to a single forest type and 17 can be considered forest type indicator species in this landscape. Floodplain forest environments are therefore an important complement to <i>terra firme</i> in terms of butterfly species richness and conservation in Amazonia.
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