Morpho menelaus amathonte 

The early stages of most Morpho Fabricius species remain unknown mostly because the females are extremely difficult to see when flying high up in the forest canopy, the immature stages are not easy to find on their host plants, the larvae are highly susceptible to viral diseases in captivity, and the complete life cycles for most species take considerable time (DeVries and Martinez, 1993). For conservation purposes, it is a priority to understand the immature stages of the butterflies and their natural host plants, particularly critical in the tropics due to the accelerating rates of deforestation and habitat destruction (Constantino, 1992).

The genus Morpho is endemic to the Neotropics, ranging from Nicaragua to Colombia and Northwestern Ecuador (D'Abrera, 1984). According to Blandin (2007a)'s point of view, M. amathonte is considered a distinct species, as opposed to Lamas (2004), who included M. amathonte as a subspecies of M. menelaus Linnaeus. The last treatment for the Morpho genus published recently by Cassildé et al. (2013).

M. m. amathonte occurs from sea level to 800 m on both slopes of Costa Rica, in association with rain forest habitats (DeVries 1987). The males patrol along forest and rivers during the early morning soon after sunrise (DeVries 1987). DeVries (1987) made the first description and food plant record of M. m. amathonte in his book, however did not mentioned the location of his described specimens. Subsequently, Janzen & Hallwachs (2016) had reported 28 host plants from the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), Northwestern Costa Rica.

DeVries (1978) reported four Morpho species in Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula. Most of the Morpho species show a local variation in this region. For example, M. helenor marinita (Cramer, 1776) presents a local form in this area in Costa Rica, of which has the basal portion of the wings brown and the iridescent blue is reduced to bands (DeVries 1987). With M. theseus the entire wing more has more light brown colors than Northern specimens in Costa Rica. In fact, iridescent wing variations had been observed on the of M. m. amathonte by others butterfly researchers from specimens of the South Pacific side in Costa Rica.
Immature stages are an important source of information for butterfly systematics (Freitas & Brown 2004, Córdoba-Alfaro & Murillo-Hiller 2014) and fundamentally important for Morphini taxonomy.