Morphos Nymphalidae and Morphinés

Very large glass entomological box (28x55x6cm) in dark mahogany wood, as new, containing six large Lepidoptera of the genus Morpho. Morphos are large butterflies belonging to the Nymphalidae family and the Morphinés subfamily. There are at least thirty species and numerous subspecies, all native to the gigantic Amazon basin, including Peru, Brazil, Venezuela and the Guianas, and almost all of them, at least in the case of the iridescent "metallic" blue males.
The left-hand column shows two particularly large males of Morpho menelaus terrestris (15 and 14.5cm wingspan at the upper outer edge of the forewings). This species, given its size, is commonly referred to as the "big blue morpho", as it is almost uniformly blue on the upper surface of the wings, with the exception of a narrow black border. The right-hand column shows two slightly smaller males of the same species (13.5 and 13 cm wingspan), collected in 1980/1990 like those in the left-hand column in Brazil in the state of Para (Th. Porion collection). In the middle are two females of the Morpho anaxibia species, recognizable by the wider black borders of their wings, adorned with brown spots. The males of Morpho anaxibia, apart from their slightly smaller size, resemble in every way the males of Morpho menelaus, almost entirely metallic blue on the upperside. Virtually all Morpho species, both male and female, are more or less dark camouflage brown on the underside.
Even if the specimens presented here come from Brazil, let's not forget the story of Eugène Le Moult, a young Breton with a passion for entomology who, in the twenties of the last century, followed his father, who had just been appointed director of the Cayenne penal colony in French Guiana, and "hired" convicts for a few cigarettes to hunt butterflies for him, in particular Morphos, of which he became the world's leading collector and seller.
The six large specimens presented in our box are in perfect condition, with all their antennae.