Blue Morpho, underside
Morpho peleides
Blue Morpho · Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden · 7 February 2026
A Blue Morpho with its wings shut in the butterfly house at Fairchild - not an owl butterfly, which is what I first took it for. Morphos are butterflies of the rainforests of Central and South America, and closed like this is how they spend most of the day.
An owl butterfly carries one huge eyespot on the hindwing; a morpho carries a chain of smaller ones, ringed in yellow and rust, with pale bands between them. Closed, it gives away nothing of the blue it is named for. The underside is the resting disguise, and the eyespots are there to send a bird's first strike somewhere other than the body.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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