''Morpho amathonte'' is a

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

butterfly belonging to the subfamily

Morphinae The Morphinae are a subfamily of Nymphalidae butterflies that includes the morphos, the owl butterflies (''Caligo''), and related lineages. It is either considered a sister group of the Satyrinae, or disassembled and included therein. Systemati ...

of the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have a red ...

. It is considered, by some authors, to be a subspecies of ''

Morpho menelaus The Menelaus blue morpho (''Morpho menelaus'') is one of thirty species of butterfly in the subfamily Morphinae. Its wingspan is approximately , and its dorsal forewings and hindwings are a bright, iridescent blue edged with black, while the ven ...

''. The genus ''

Morpho The morpho butterflies comprise many species of Neotropical butterfly under the genus ''Morpho''. This genus includes more than 29 accepted species and 147 accepted subspecies, found mostly in South America, Mexico, and Central America. ''Morph ...

'' is palatable but some species (such as ''M. amathonte'') are very strong fliers; birds – even species which are specialized for catching butterflies on the wing – find it very hard to catch them.Young A.M. 1971. Wing colouration and reflectance in ''Morpho'' butterflies as related to reproductive behaviour and escape from avian predators. ''Oecologia'' 7, 209–222. The conspicuous blue coloration shared by most ''Morpho'' species may be a case of

Müllerian mimicry Müllerian mimicry is a natural phenomenon in which two or more well-defended species, often foul-tasting and sharing common predators, have come to mimic each other's honest warning signals, to their mutual benefit. The benefit to Mülleria ...

, or may be 'pursuit aposematism'.Edmunds M. 1974. ''Defence in Animals: a survey of anti-predator defences''. Harlow, Essex and NY: Longman. . On p255–256 there is a discussion of 'pursuit aposematism': :"Young suggested that the brilliant blue colours and bobbing flight of ''Morpho'' butterflies may induce pursuit... ''Morpho amathonte'' is a very fast flier... It is possible that birds that have chased several unsuccessfully may learn not to pursue butterflies of that

ype Peace River Airport is a municipally owned airport located west of the Town of Peace River, Alberta, Canada. The airport has one runway, which is , and a terminal building, which is . Northern Air is based at the airport and provides scheduled ...

.. In one area, Young found that 80% of less brilliant species of ''Morpho'' had beak marks on their wings... but none out of 31 ''M. amathonte''. :"If brilliant colour was a factor in courtship, then the conflicting selection pressures of sexual selection and predator selection might lead to different results in quite closely related species".

Description

''Morpho amathonte'' has a

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

of about . The total number of days for which it takes this species to grow into an adult is about 120 days. During this time, the butterfly is an egg for 14 days, then remains as larvae for 83 days, and then remains a pupa for about 19 days. This species shows an evident

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

which differentiates males from females. The basic color in males is bright metallic blue, sometimes bluish. In the females the upper surfaces of the wings are partially blue and have a wide dark gray-brown margins, decorated with small white spots running along the outer edge of both wings. From closely related species ''Morpho amathonte'' is distinguished by a large dark spot at the top of the front wings. The undersides of the wings are brown, becoming lighter towards the edges, with three or four colorful and bright eyespots clearly visible on each wing.

Distribution

This species can be found in Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

References

* Le Moult (E.) & Réal (P.), 1962-1963. ''Les Morpho d'Amérique du Sud et Centrale'', Editions du cabinet entomologique E. Le Moult, Paris. *Paul Smart, 1976 ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Butterfly World in Color''. London, Salamander: ''Encyclopedie des papillons''. Lausanne, Elsevier Sequoia (French language edition) page 234 fig. 4 (Colombia)

External links

Butterflies of America
Images of type and other specimens of ''Morpho menelaus amathonte''
Taxonomy Browser
Upperside and underside photographs. Morpho Nymphalidae of South America {{Morphinae-stub