''Morpho richardus'', or Richard's 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 found only in

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literall ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Description

Male indefinite greenish, female of yellowish bronze green. Both above and beneath like a small '' M. hercules''. Forewing with three rows of submarginal yellow dots. The patch before the apex of the cell broadly dull gold yellow, with scattered black scales. Discal area of the forewing yellowish. Distal margin rather narrow, brown black, base of both wings light green. Under surface: forewing with four small, elongate

ocelli A simple eye (sometimes called a pigment pit) refers to a form of eye or an optical arrangement composed of a single lens and without an elaborate retina such as occurs in most vertebrates. In this sense "simple eye" is distinct from a multi-le ...

of about uniform size, with narrow black irises. Proximally to the ocelli there are three very large, triangular grey-yellow median spots. Underside of the hindwing predominantly red brown with violet sheen. Median band grey violet. Length of the forewing 58 mm.Fruhstorfer, H., 1913. Family: Morphidae. In A. Seitz (editor), ''Macrolepidoptera of the World'', vol. 5: 333–356. Stuttgart: Alfred Kernen.

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 '' Abuta selloana''.

References

* Le Moult (E.) & Réal (P.), 1962-1963. ''Les Morpho d'Amérique du Sud et Centrale'', Editions du cabinet entomologique E. Le Moult, Paris.

External links

"''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. Morpho Nymphalidae of South America Fauna of Brazil Butterflies described in 1898 Taxa named by Hans Fruhstorfer {{Morphinae-stub