Blue Morpho, underside
Morpho peleides
Blue Morpho · Carlsbad · 7 March 2026
A Blue Morpho with the wings closed, in the butterfly house at Carlsbad. In the rainforests of Central and South America this is how it rests, on a trunk or a leaf in the understory, and how it stays alive.
The famous electric blue is entirely on the upper surface, gone the instant the wings close. What is left is this: a dead-leaf brown scattered with owl-like eyespots, each one a small deception aimed at a bird's instinct to avoid anything that looks like it is already looking back.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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