March 2009 - Morpho didius

Family: Morphidae

"Morphidae" is one of the smallest Families of butterflies, containing just about 80 species. This family is one of the most well-known of the Neotropical Region.
These diurnal butterflies are still at night, folding
their wings up and over their bodies and revealing their under sides as they hang from branches and leaves, blending into their backgrounds.

Since a steady flower supply with nectar is not always available, as typical butterflies of tropical rainforests, adult morphos must resort to the saps and juices of leaves, fruits, and rotting logs to supplement their nutrition.
Predators include birds, large insects, and if near water, fishes, but their number is relatively little. There is way bigger danger caused by rainforest dwellers, continual logging, clearing, burning, expansion of agriculture and other development that threatens these flying "jewels" of the jungles.


The Morpho Butterfly - Morpho didius

The species of Morpho in the family Morphidae are found in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. The Morpho Butterfly is dwelling in the canopy of the jungle and rarely coming near the ground. They have a wing span of nearly 18 cm (7 inches).

Morpho didius passes through four distinct phases of metamorphoses (egg, larval, pupal and adult life stage). The pale green eggs resemble dewdrops. The caterpillar is red-brown with bright patches of lime-green on its back and stinging hairs. The chrysalis is . Adult, winged butterflies live only for one or two weeks and mate immidiately after they emerge the chrysalis.

The Morpho butterfly is gynandromorph. Adult males display an iridescent brilliant blue color on the upper wing surface. The underside of the wings is inconspicuous brown, gray, black and red. The females are less vivid than the males. With their wings coloured brightly blue and green and shades in between, the males clearly are the more colorful of the sexes.

The coloration of the big blue Morpho butterfly has fascinated man for generations. The blue metallic color is not the result of the pigmentation of the wings but derived from optical interference of the wing scales. As a natural ideal for optical engineering the wing scales break the light like tiny prisms and give the illusion of blue shimmering wings, but you can see the color differs with the viewing angle.

The bright color is designed to intimidate any rivals that might fly into his territory. It also is a "flashing" built in defense mechanism. These large lepidopterans beat their wings slowly while in flight, so their striking blue upper sides are only visible for short periods of time. This causes predators to loose track as they only glimpse blue flashes - the brown underside makes the Morpho invisible in the thick foliage of the jungle as it periodically blends into the background browns and greens of the tropical rainforest.