I chased Blue Morpho butterflies around for a week while visiting Costa Rica in 2007.
Costa Rica has a lot of different and interesting wildlife, and the selection of butterfly species is off the charts.
The Blue Morpho is one of the most colorful of the butterflies, but it’s extremely hard to find one with it’s wings open. During most encounters, they’ll be resting on foliage with their wings closed. When the wings are closed, their wings have plain brown patterns. In the mornings, they will open their wings up to allow them to warm up for the day. I’d spot them flying around and wait for one to land on a leaf or flower. Most of the time they would sit with their wings closed. And, it’s extremely difficult to approach one without it taking off. I finally caught up with this butterfly spreading it’s wings while poking around the flower shrubs outside of my jungle hotel.
To this day, some 18 years after I made this image, it’s been one of my best selling photographs.
Camera: Canon EOS 30D w Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro.
