A Perfect Blue Morpho Butterfly

I haven't always made the right choices. A reminder of a few of mine came from a jewelry booth at the "Pike" in Long Beach, California back in the 1950s and 1960s. These I can chalk up to the lack of awareness about nature, something we all experience when we are young.

As a result, I own a few jewels of shame. They sit in my jewelry box, relics of my teen-aged enthusiasm for things that were unique. English sterling butterfly wing jewelry I should have never bought knowing that a being of exquisite beauty gave up its life for my vanity and amusement.

Human genius has never invented anything lovelier than a butterfly, nor anything so wonderful. In the lore and legend of the ancients, even in the fairy tales beloved by all of us, nothing exceeds the surprise, the startling succession from repulsiveness to dainty charm, of this creature's strange existence.

Beginning with the tiny egg which the mother butterfly or moth deposits upon a branch (each kind seems to prefer its own special kind of plant or tree). From the egg hatches a tiny worm like grub, which grows into a caterpillar with an enormous appetite.

From that caterpillar one day you discover that it spins a case around itself, and goes to sleep. One day, not that long after, the covering of the case splits open. Out comes a winged thing of the air, lovely as a floating flower -- a perfect butterfly or moth.

Scientists who have studied the subject all their lives have sought to classify the eggs of the butterfly, in the hopes of recognizing species by them, but all such attempts have failed.

The difficulties go deeper than that though. There are times when, in the presence of the perfect insect, we are puzzled to say why one is a butterfly and another is a moth. It is simple enough to distinguish between the clothes-moth and a cabbage-haunting butterfly.

However there are features in which moths so closely approach the butterflies as to make it a delicate matter to define the border line.

As a matter of fact, the border line is much less sharply drawn by Mother Nature than by entomologists.

So How Do You Know If It's A Moth Or A Butterfly?

First then, a butterfly flies by day, a moth by night. That holds good to this extent, that butterflies never fly by night. However, as against that, there are many moths which fly by day. In warm latitudes, where bats and other night-flying enemies of insects abound, moths which fly in the hours of darkness are rarities.

The second rule is that butterflies have their antennae thickened at the ends, after the manner of little clubs, while moths have their antennae fringed or feathered.

However, we look at a Brunet moth through a microscope to find thickened antennae-ends here, and are reminded again that our law is not -- without exceptions.

Rule number three is that the butterfly when at rest raises its wings over its back so that they are at an angle of ninety degrees to the body. Whereas, the moth rests with its wings down, like the roof of a house, with the rear wings hooked to the front pair.

Yet, some Skipper butterflies when resting flatten out their wings moth-wise, though they are free of the hook-and-eye attachments.

There is a mystery about the eggs of moths and butterflies. It should be advantageous for the eggs to lie unobserved by creatures to which an insect egg is dainty food. Yet, the eggs of the moth and butterfly are as exquisitely beautiful as gems -- lustrous as pearls, more delicate than hand-wrought jewels.

They are fluted, ribbed, patterned in a score of different ways -- perfect as works of art, yet contrived with marvelous skill for the admission of the substance which renders them fertile. Some are even comical looking like eyes of humans.

The material of eggs are made also provides the larvae with their first meal after they have hatched from the shells.

Such beauty as this, we might think, would make the eggs conspicuous and so expose them to danger. There is safety to obscurity perhaps.

However, since only a small part of the thousands of eggs laid do survive, the charm of form, texture and coloration must be accepted as another evidence of Mother Nature's desire for beauty.

A second element of mystery about the eggs is how the parents know where to lay them. If you are looking for butterfly or moth eggs, you have to know where to look for where that species lays their eggs.

Study butterflies and moths and you'll soon learn what kinds of eggs to expect from dead nettle, from the privet, from the linden, from the cabbage, from the oak tree and the apple tree. That's because moths and butterflies are true to their habitat -- that is, almost every species has a favorite plant on which it lays its eggs.

The grown up insect goes back to the plant or tree trunk on which it was nurtured in its own early life. This is a wonderful mystery.

No moth or butterfly eats. Instead it drinks the nectar of sweet tasting flowers, or, as in the case of the Red Admiral, sips the juices of decaying flesh or the muddy water of a puddle.

However, it has no need for solid foods. It has no mouth parts for such food. Some moths and butterflies cannot even take moisture.

Yet all butterflies lay their eggs on a substance which will be cradle and larder to the caterpillars into which those eggs will hatch.

It is always the right food for the particular eggs. Some caterpillars, however, are such lusty fellows, that they thrive on almost any sort of diet, and can go from one plant type to another, without ill effects.

Generally, however, there is only one food, for a species. If that fails, the caterpillar will die in the midst of abundance, starving where caterpillars of other species are flourishing.

The parents, to which solid food is not necessary, find it without fail for the offspring which the parents may never see live.

The object of my former jewelry aficionado obsession was made from the blue Morpho butterfly. The selection of these shimmering metallic blues and greens winged angels perhaps was understandable back in a world less conscious of conservation of species -- for they are beautiful.

Their many colors are not because of pigmentation, but of iridescence. Microscopic sized scales covering their wings reflect light in multi-layers, so minute and exquisite that they are likened to diamonds. Look at them from a different angle, and you'll see something just slightly different each time.

I like to think of it as Mother Nature's version of the the old French painting trick of Trompe-l'œil -- as it certainly trumps the eye of the beholder.

There are other mysterious and wonderful features about the Morpho Butterfly worth knowing, like:

1. Only the dorsal side of thier wings are iridescent. The ventral side is brown.
2. The ventral side exhibits ocelli or eye spots.
3. The eyes of the Morpho butterflies are believed to be very UV light sensitive.
4. The males of the Morpho butterflies are able to see each other from far away.
5. Some of the varieties of the Morpho Butterfly are so large and iridescent that they can be seem by the naked human eye up to one kilometre (over 1/2 mile) away.
6. The White Morpho butterfly, although seemingly white in colorization shows a glorious purple iridescence from other angles.
7. They are native to South America, Mexico, and Central America.
8. Male Morpho butterflies are territorial and will chase other male rivals away.
9. Morpho butterflies wobble in flight unlike many other butterfly species.
10. It is the more common variety -- the Blue Morpho butterfly -- that is still used in jewelry and other art related products.

Today, I still collect and wear butterfly jewelry -- but no real butterflies give up their lives for my vanity.

Butterfly jewelry originated in the 1920s and were popular through the early 1940s. Then, there was a revival of popularity in the eclectic hippie days of the 1960s.

For the most part they were imports from England. While the majority were made into brooches, the ones that were sold in Southern California were primarily marketed as rings and charm bracelets.

As a teen, for me the appeal of sterling silver, fit within the definition of growing up in the American west where we were accustomed to sterling native peoples jewelry. Made from the wings of the Morpho butterfly, the majority of the butterflies that were part of the design came from South America (largely Brazil).

Upon which a reverse painted scene was painted and backed by the irredescent butterfly wing, designs heavily depending on blue butterfly wings (although a small number were done with yellow butterfly wings).

Well, aside from decimating a specific butterfly species, today antique butterfly wing jewelry is a rare thing due to the fact that many of the pieces of jewelry have spots or completely deteriorated with respect to the delicateness of the butterfly wing.

Unfortunately, this type of jewelry is still being made today and as popular as ever. With the perspective of an adult more in tune with nature, even though I still nostalgically keep these relics of my foolishness -- for me, it's right up there with buying a real fur coat -- something I could no longer do. I'm thinking there's got to be a better way of putting a little shimmer into our lives.