Common Morpho

Morpho helenor · Order: Lepidoptera · Family: Nymphalidae

Damages trees, gardens or crops. The caterpillars feed on a variety of trees and garden plants, which can damage those plants.

Source: Wikipedia

Common Morpho
Photo: Ignacio March Mifsut, CC BY-SA

Morpho helenor is a Neotropical butterfly also called the common blue morpho. Its larvae eat leaves of several trees and garden plants such as Genipa, Inga, peanuts and clover.

Source: Wikipedia

Life cycle

It is a species group that may include several distinct species and many subspecies have been described.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 2 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California, Arizona.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: native in North America. Source: iNaturalist

More photos

Common Morpho photo 3
Photo: unknown, CC0
Common Morpho photo 4
Photo: unknown, CC0
Common Morpho photo 5
Photo: Nicolas Olejnik, CC BY
Common Morpho photo 6
Photo: Ricard Busquets Reverte, CC BY

Same family (Nymphalidae)

MonarchMonarchDanaus plexippusRed AdmiralRed AdmiralVanessa atalantaPainted LadyPainted LadyVanessa carduiGulf FritillaryGulf FritillaryDione vanillaeSpeckled WoodSpeckled WoodPararge aegeriaEuropean Peacock ButterflyEuropean Peacock ButterflyAglais io

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho_helenor

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.