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Morpho helenor
"Blue morphos" are severely threatened by deforestation of tropical forests and habitat fragmentation. Humans provide a direct threat to this spectacular creature because their beauty attracts artists and collectors from all over the globe who wish to capture and display them.
Live in the rainforests of South America. I found this beautiful butterfly in a forest in a mountainous region of transition forest, between the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado. -Can Found in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Surinam, French Guiana, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and in Trinidad and Tobago.-
The inner side of the wings (which I could don't photograph, unfortunatelly) was blue, like the wings of "Caligo Illioneus", but, with a blue very more dark.
Glad to help.
I have always liked Morphos, unfortunately the taxonomy is a mess. Due to the geographic variations exhibited by most of the species, these butterflies were once divided up into many dozens of separate taxa.
The best way to single out your "race" of helenor would be to compare the geographic ranges of the subgroups. I have not looked at your locality data specifically, but the "Achilleana" group occupies eastern Brazil south into Argentina (often incl. the following sub-groups = violacea, achillides, anakreon, coelestis, pindarus/trojana, interfluvialis,...etc.). It's also imprtant to mention that the amounts of blue can vary based on gender, location, and possibly season.
Cheers,
bill
Thanks to all the people who helped to identify this Spot! These discussions are important to me, therefore, help me to understand the species identification and help a little in my academic background in "Life Sciences"... Thank you very much, humans! ;)
Hi Debbie! There is absolutely no reason for sorry! It is called suggestion, not "in stone written ID". Actually you were also quite close, since Morpho peleides is actually Morpho helenor peleides, so we just delete the peleides and you have the right ID ;-)...
sorry Bayucca it was my mistake on the scientific name, I'm glad you know them best
Morpho helenor and my guess would be Morpho helenor achillides or Morpho helenor achillaena:
http://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/mo...
http://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/mo...
I ruled out Morpho achilles due to your broader white band at the margin of the forewing:
http://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/ih02...
But I think with Morpho helenor we can be happy as well. Thanks Bill for your efforts.
No reason for sorry! This one is a really hard one... give me some more 5 minutes and I give you my summery about all the canidates...
Thanks for the correction and, sorry... But I don't know much about butterflies, so I end up making some mistakes... :/
Congrats Bill! That was exactly my thinkings about this one, before I get a crash with my dozens of open windows some days ago. Definitely not Peleides. I am on my iPad and can't reopen all windows. There are some more candidates. I will later take a look into this one. Unfortunately there are also many "untrusted" IDs on the web for Brazilian Morphos. Without an open wing shot it might even be more difficult.
There are 2 species groups that are sympatric across much of South America and easily confused. Unfortunately both M. achilles and M. helenor are geographically variable in pattern and the amounts of blue dorsally. I'm inclined to go with helenor, but am not certain.
The taxon M. helenor now incl. all ssp. of M. peleides across ne. SA & Central Amer.
http://butterfliesofamerica.com/L/t/Morp...
http://butterfliesofamerica.com/L/t/Morp...
Spotted on Feb 11, 2013
Submitted on Feb 11, 2013
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