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Magic Wings

wildcoast7
Feb 23, 2016
2 min read

To defend oneself, beauty can be the strongest weapon. The blue Morpho Butterfly, a master of illusion, is one of over 80 described species of butterflies that reside in the rainforests of Costa Rica.

The iridescent effect in the wings of the blue morpho has a structural origin, not one based in pigments. photo source: wikipedia

The Blue Morpho is quite a mesmerized nasty pair of wings.

When an enemy approaches, it uses its wings to flash bright light in the eyes. These cause predators to lose track of the butterfly as they only see blue flashes! Also, when Blue Morphos need camouflage, they close their wings revealing a brown color to hide into trees. As a last trick, when they sleep at night they fold their wings so that only the dark underside is seen, making them almost invisible.

The wings serve a lot the cosmetic industry, high-tech textiles, self-cleaning surfaces and... Bomb detectors. The nano-structure scale of the wings reveals a new world which is really interesting for scientists.

"I was really drawn to this because I think this is where a lot of people's interest begins. It begins with the familiar - what you see around you." Bill Bailey, comedian

Their color is produced by the ingenuity of their structure, and not pigments. The structure looks like one micron high Christmas Trees. The iridescent effect is produced by light reflecting off the different structures in the Christmas Trees and the air gaps between the structures can be used to trap other vapors.

That’s why American military is particularly interested in the butterfly to work on explosive agent vapor detectors.

However, this beauty is threatened by deforestation and butterfly lovers…

These butterflies are not only famous in Costa Rica, on February 14, 2014 until April 24; up to 2,000 newly-hatched butterflies fluttered around in the Botanical Garden’s greenhouse, Montreal. An beautiful ephemeral show.

Where to go to observe the dragonfly?