One of the Blue Morpho Butterflies, this species displays a lighter shade of blue and perhaps a more metallic appearance than a common Blue Morpho. It lives in the Central American rain forests and can grow to 8 inches wide.
History
Which came first: the butterfly or the flower? Fortunately, riddles can be answered in the fossil record. Flowers first appeared in the beginning of the Cretaceous period, the time of Triceratops and T-rex. Pollinators, including butterflies, followed, but not for millions of years. Butterfly fossils appear between 85 and 55 million years ago, just in time to flap their wings goodbye at the dinosaurs, but also in time to help fill the world with flowering plants. Given their head start, it’s not too surprising that there are 350,000 species of flowering plants in the world today compared to 17,500 species of butterflies.