Creature Feature Encyclopedia: Insecta

Blue Morpho Butterfly Morpho menelaus Habitat: rainforests of South and Central America, including Brazil, Costa Rica, and Venezuela

Morpho Butterflies are well known for their metalic blue wings. Only the males, however, possess this incredible coloring. The butterfly pictured here is a male Morpho rhetenor, one of five morpho species. It has a maximum wingspan of five and a half inches. Male Morphos are collected by the millions each year for use in jewelry. Adorned in more subdued earthtones, the females of each species have evolved their own unique coloring to help them camouflage with the surrounding foliage. Rhetenor females are orange, yellow, and brown. They lay their eggs on grasses such as bamboo in the rainforests of Central and South America.

~A Fly in the Sky © 1996