''Morpho didius'', the giant blue morpho, 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 bi ...

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. Systema ...

of 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 re ...

. 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 ...

''.

Description

Morpho didius gynandromorphe GLAM muséum Lille 2016

''Morpho didius'' 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 ...

reaching , making it one of the largest of ''Morpho'' species. The dorsal side of the wings are iridescent and metallic blue, and the forewings are quite elongated.

Distribution

This species can be found in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

Biology

The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. Th ...

feeds on

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm tre ...

References

BioLib.cz"''Morpho'' Fabricius, 1807"
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms''

Images of

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

and other specimens of ''Morpho menelaus didius''.
Better Butterfly Creations
*Paul Smart, 1976 ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Butterfly World in Color''. London, Salamander: ''Encyclopedie des papillons''. Lausanne, Elsevier Sequoia (French language edition) page 235 fig. 7 female (Peru) Morpho Butterflies described in 1874 Nymphalidae of South America Taxa named by Carl H. Eigenmann {{Morphinae-stub