Morphoes caterpillars feed on certain species of legume trees and woody vines. The seeds of these plants contain suites of potent free-standing amino acids that repel insect attack. Quite possibly the leaves also contain the same or similar insecticidal substances, preventing all but coevolved insects such as morphoes caterpillars from feeding on them.
Butterfly and moth grazing pressure, in particular, has been the sine qua non ecological force promoting the tremendous evolutionary diversification of plant life found in these biologically-rich habitats.
Under constant pressure from caterpillars, plants evolve new counter defenses and even evolve new species that are less prone to insect attack.
Deploying basic techniques of organic chemistry and biochemical synthesis, scientists specializing in natural products have extracted from leaves, stems, fruits, and other living tissues of rainforest plants their unique chemical attractants and repellents, and have chemically characterized them for many applications.
For example, the flavors and fragrance industry has benefitted immensely from the creativity of tropical nature, not so much in the antagonistic, competitive arena of combat between insects and plants, but in the cooperative interfaces of pollination and mammalian and bird dissemination of fruit and seeds. Floral fragrances arising from diverse recipes in the pollinating flowers of rainforest plants draw in pollen-gathering insects and nectar-seeking birds, bees, and, of course, butterflies and moths.
The attractive flavors of fruits ensure the dispersal of seeds by animal life. And only the surface has been scratched. Since, collectively, scientific studies of tropical plants and the creatures interacting with them have revealed more than 10, unusual natural products, we know there must be much, much more to study and understand of similar substances in these forests.
They hold great long-term promise for cutting-edge scientific discoveries in biomedical research, specialty enzymes, and agro-ecology. So much so that the National Cancer Institute recently commissioned a long-term study of plant species containing possible anti-tumor substances with a focus on tropical floras. But time is running out for the rainforests and their butterflies due to tropical deforestation that continues at an alarming rate. Originally, 6 million square miles of tropical rainforest existed worldwide.
Today, as a result of deforestation, only 2. Can we afford to witness their continued destruction and the loss of—among other things—new pharmacological knowledge of great benefit to humankind?
When the blue morpho flies, the contrasting bright blue and dull brown colors flash, making it look like the morpho is appearing and disappearing. Blue morphos, like other butterflies, also have two clubbed antennas, two fore wings and two hind wings, six legs and three body segments—the head, thorax and abdomen. Blue morphos live in the tropical forests of Latin America from Mexico to Colombia.
Adults spend most of their time on the forest floor and in the lower shrubs and trees of the understory with their wings folded. However, when looking for mates, the blue morpho will fly through all layers of the forest. Humans most commonly see morphos in clearings and along streams where their bright blue wings are most visible.
Pilots flying over rainforests have even encountered large groups of blue morphos above the treetops, warming themselves in the sun. As a caterpillar, it chews leaves of many varieties, but prefers to dine on plants in the pea family.
When it becomes a butterfly it can no longer chew, but drinks its food instead. Some of the rainforest butterflies you may see on your travels are mentioned below:.
These rainforest butterflies are known as brush footed butterflies as they have only four functional legs. The first two are reduced to a small ornament under their head. An iconic genus of the Amazon Rainforest are the blue morphos Morpho peleides, pictured above. They are a large butterfly with a wing span of up to 17 cm 6.
The bottom of their wings are dull to disguise the butterfly when it settles. When flying, the contrasting dull-brown and bright-blue flash on and off giving a wonderful display of colour.
Blue morpho caterpillars mainly feed on plants in the pea family and the adults can be seen on rotting fruit or feeding from the fluid of dead animals or fungi.
You can find blue morphos in tropical forests of Central and South America. The most attractive rainforest butterflies are in the family Papilionidae. In this group you will find the swallowtails and birdwings. In the battle to deter the heliconids, new species of passion flower evolve, synthesizing new poisons in the proces. In turn, new heliconid species, which can detoxify the poisons, evolve.
Many forms of both passion flower and heliconid result. Heliconids adapt to detoxify only the chemicals of their particular passion flower and so are restricted to feeding on that species. Many have additional nectaries which are not inside flowers.
Passion flowers such as the Costa Rican species Passiflora adenopoda, have hooked hairs which cover their surface. These hairs trap and puncture the heliconid larvae, who starve and bleed to death.
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