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Common Blue Morpho

Morpho peleides

Description:

This Morpho butterfly was dead, but I just wanted to include it for the colourful wings. They almost never rested with their wings open. The entire life cycle of the Morpho butterfly, from egg to death, is approximately 115 days. Many Morpho butterflies are colored in metallic, shimmering shades of blue and green. The brilliant blue color in the butterfly's wings is caused by the diffraction of the light from millions of tiny scales on its wings. The Peleides Blue Morpho, Common Morpho, or The Emperor (Morpho peleides) is an iridescent tropical butterfly found in Mexico, Central America, northern South America, Paraguay, and Trinidad.

Habitat:

Primary forests of the Amazon and Atlantic. Also adapted to breed in a wide variety of other forested habitats, for instance the dry deciduous woodlands of Nicaragua and secondary forests. Morphos are found at altitudes between sea level and about 1400 m.

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1 Comment

pamsai
pamsai 10 years ago

added a photo...

pamsai
Spotted by
pamsai

Costa Rica

Spotted on Oct 20, 2013
Submitted on Nov 24, 2013

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Reference

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