Today’s post is a mid-week bonus post. This post is different from my normal post that features on single topic or species. Sometimes there are things that I think are interesting and I feel that I should bring attention to them but I don’t think that I should devote an entire post to a single species. In these cases I will occasionally make a post that is about a group of similar items. So today’s post is focused on butterflies from Costa Rica.

Butterflies are one of nature’s wonders to me. They start off as an unattractive worm that are eating machines and then they hibernate eating nothing. When they emerge from their cocoon they are transformed into a beautiful flying insects that are very fragile. It is truly amazing!

One of the other things that I find amazing about butterflies is how many different shapes and patterns that there are in butterfly species. In this post I have chosen to feature 5 different species of butterflies from Costa Rica and illustrate things that I find interesting about them.

Blue Morpho Butterfly

The following 2 photos illustrate how unattractive that the Blue Morpho Caterpillar is and how amazingly beautiful it becomes as a butterfly.

One of the other things that I find interesting about butterflies are how different their wings are between the top and bottom. The photos above and below lets you see the differences of the Blue Morpho’s wings are between when they are open and closed. It makes me think that I am looking at two different butterflies.

 

I have seen Blue Morpho butterflies several times in rain forest but this is the only time that I have ever been able to photograph one. Normally, when I see one it is flying through the jungle and it literally looks like a blue light bouncing through the forest. When its wings are open you see the bright blue in the air up against the green vegetation and when the wings close it completely disappears.

Banded Peacock Butterfly and Grecian Shoemaker Butterfly

These two butterflies are not the prettiest butterflies but the splashes of color that they have when they open their wings make them pretty.

Malachite Butterfly

These butterflies are one of the prettier butterflies because they are pretty both when their wings are open and closed but they look dramatically different in the two positions. The first picture is when the butterfly is hatching from its cocoon before it starts to fly and the second photo is of a Malachite Butterfly setting.

 

Both of these butterflies are with their wings closed and their colors are striking.

The photo above shows the butterfly with its wings open but I took the picture from below which shows the underside of the butterfly’s body but the sunshine makes the colors from the top of the butterfly shine through. The photos below let you see how the butterfly looks when its wings are open and then you can see how the sunshine changed the look of the picture above.

Ruddy Daggerwing Butterfly

This butterfly has one of the most dramatic differences between when its wings are open and closed. Then its wings are open its colors are bright and similar to a tiger but when their wings are closed is uses them for camouflage.

Butterflies are one of nature’s examples of fragile beauty and it amazes me how something that is so fragile can survive in the harshness of nature.

I hope that you have enjoyed my bonus post on butterflies from Costa Rica. I will have other similar posts on other topics and I also intend on future posts on different species of butterflies.