Blue morpho butterfly
| Blue morpho butterfly | ||||||||||||
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Blue morpho butterfly ( Morpho peleides ) |
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| Morpho peleides | ||||||||||||
| Kollar , 1850 |
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The blue morpho butterfly ( Morpho peleides ) or sky butterfly is a butterfly from the noble butterfly family (Nymphalidae).
description
The moths reach a wingspan of 95 to 120 millimeters. They have bright blue wing tops. The blue is created by interference of the light on the fir tree-like scales of the wings and not by pigments . In the females the blue is not so strong. The leading edges of the fore wings and the outer edges of the fore and hind wings are black. The undersides of the wings are brown with wavy white stripes and yellow-rimmed eye spots , four of which are on the hind wing and three on the forewing.
Occurrence
The morpho butterfly occurs in the vicinity of forest edges or forest paths as well as on plantations of the tropical rainforest of Mexico , Central America , northern South America and Trinidad as well as other West Indian islands . You can find it up to 1,400 meters above sea level .
Way of life
The moths suckle on fermenting fruits. They fly in open places in the woods, such as B. along rivers, roads and paths, their flight is very fast and powerful. The females fly especially around noon. They lay their eggs on the top of the leaves of the forage plants. The caterpillars that hatch are spotted yellow and red and reach a length of up to 90 millimeters. Your head capsule is hairy. The development time takes about four months (an average of 115 days).
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed on butterflies (Fabales), especially on plants of the genera Mucuna , Lonchocarpus and Pterocarpus .
status
As a rule, the species is abundant; it is only threatened by the loss of its habitat and increased hunting by foragers.
swell
literature
- Elizabeth Balmer: Butterflies: Recognizing and Identifying. Parragon Books, 2007, ISBN 9781407512037 , pp. 116/117
Individual evidence
- ↑ Μορφώ is a nickname of Aphrodites , Πηλείδης "son of Peleus" = Achilles
- ↑ Radislav Potyrailo, Ravi K. Bonam, John G. Hartley, Timothy A. Starkey, Peter Vukusic, Milana Vasudev, Timothy Bunning, Rajesh R. Naik, Zhexiong Tang, Manuel A. Palacios, Michael Larsen, Laurie A. Le Tarte, James C. Grande, Sheng Zhong, Tao Deng: Towards outperforming conventional sensor arrays with fabricated individual photonic vapor sensors inspired by Morpho butterflies . In: Nature Communications . 6, 2014, p. 7959. doi : 10.1038 / ncomms8959 .
Web links
- Blue Morpho Butterfly (engl./pdf; 147 kB)