What Do Blue Morpho Butterfly Eat?

Blue morpho butterflies are classified as herbivores because they feed on nectar or leaves of plants. They are not predators. Blue Morpho butterflies have different diets at every stage. Blue morpho butterflies are found in the tropical forests of Latin America from Colombia to Mexico. Adult butterflies spend their time in lower shrubs and on forest floors. They are also found in Brazil, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. Blue Morpho butterflies can be poisonous to their predators.

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These are the largest butterflies in the world, and their size ranges from five to eight inches in length. The average weight of a blue morpho butterfly is about 2-3 grams. Blue Morpho butterflies can live up to 115 days.

Plants and nectar

Blue morpho butterflies are known as fruit feeders because they feed on decaying fruits. When decaying fruits are unavailable, then they mostly feed on tree sap. Blue morpho butterflies will eat plants such as pea plants, soybean, alfalfa, peanut, chickpeas, and bean plant.

Other than plants and fruit juice, Blue morpho butterflies also eat food like fungi, decomposing animals, and mud, which contains rich nutrients. 

They are also responsible for the distribution of fungi spores. These butterflies also drink juice from flat-headed flowers. Blue Morpho butterflies hide in shrubs and small trees because there they get large amounts of food and they also remain protected from predators. These morpho butterflies also protect themselves by emitting a strong odor from a gland present on their front legs that keeps predators away.

What blue morpho butterflies don’t eat?

Blue Morpho butterflies don’t eat live animals or moths. They don’t eat processed food. Blue Morpho butterflies don’t move towards feeders, and they don’t like bird seeds. Blue Morpho butterflies mainly extract juice from flowers and leaves, they don’t extract nectar.

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