BOLD 11 - Morpho amathonte
Image courtesy of the Barcode of Life Data Systems
A note from Joseph Rossano:
As an artist, I strive to distill ideas, concepts, and reality into their bare essence. My resulting minimalist sculptures, I hope, convey an emotion, ask a question, or direct the viewer on a path of introspection and investigation, as they explore man's impact on the environment. My series "BOLD" is named for the acronym for the Barcode of Life Data Systems database. The subject of each specimen box is neither real nor is it an accurate representation of the creature it is designed to represent; rather, it is a jeweled representation of reality that draws the viewer in for a closer inspection. What is the story of this specimen? What is the text on the side of the piece? What is a DNA barcode? Read on for answers to these and other questions.
About Morpho amathonte - by Dr. Dan Janzen
A book about Costa Rican Lepidoptera would be incomplete without at least one image of a bright iridescent blue morpho butterfly. The usual one in tourist brochures is Morpho peleides, easily reared by butterfly farms and having a strong wide black band around the margins of the wings. M. peleides is also the species so commonly encountered flying at people-height down forest trails and along roadsides in the rain forest, dry forest and cloud forest. Morpho amathonte, however, is exclusively Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) rain forest, neither venturing up the volcano into cloud forest nor over into dry forest, even though at least some of its caterpillar food plants – Fabaceae, Dichapetalaceae and even the occasional palm – are found in these other two “more extreme” ecosystems. M. amathonte males are quite distinctive in having no black border (except for the wing tip and forewing costa) around the intense field of blue, while the females do have a wide brown-black and spotted border to the blue field. Both sexes, with their larger wings than those of M. peleides, have a swooping flopping flight and often go as high as 10-30 m above the ground as they course up and down road cuts through the forest.
All of the ACG morphos – M. amathonte, M. peleides, M. granadensis, M. polyphemus, M. theseus – are blessed with a constellation of false eye spots on their undersides. The protective function of these eye spots is clearly not when in flight, but most likely when roosting on foliage, or when perched on rotting fallen fruit on the forest floor. They, like many saturniines and brasolines with similar false eye spots, offer a super stimulus on close view that says “you are being looked at, close up” – a stimulus that if not responded to by instant flight, will make lunch of the viewer.
M. amathonte caterpillars are quite similar to those of M. peleides, and share a number of food plant species in ACG rain forest, but setting the dorsal view of M. amathonte next to a dorsal view of a last instar yellow morph of M. peleides will reveal a number of small details that allow them to be distinguished. The easiest key character is two small yellow central dots against a dark background on M. peleides. The green-apple green pupae are also very similar in form, but the pupa of M. amathonte sports a brilliant white horizontal belt across its dorsal middle while that of M. peleides is plain green in the middle.
Data and images about this species in the ACG can be explored in Google Fusion Tables.
Taken from Miller, J. C., Janzen, D. H. and Hallwachs, W. 2007. 100 Butterflies and moths. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About this piece – BOLD 11: Morpho amathonte by Joseph Rossano
If you look closely at the side of the encasement on this work of art, you’ll see a series of A’s, C’s, G’s and T’s. They make up a DNA sequence, but not just any sequence – it’s a sequence unique to this species. Each species has a different sequence at this particular spot in their DNA code. Scientists call this sequence fragment a “DNA barcode”. If each part of the sequence were represented by a different colour, it might look like:
What is a DNA barcode?
DNA barcoding uses a small fragment of a single gene in an organism’s DNA to identify the species to which that organism belongs, much like one might use a UPC barcode to distinguish different products. These powerful tools are helping scientists to catalogue the world’s biodiversity. The process began in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and scientists here – like collaborator Dr. Paul Hebert of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (see below) – continue to lead international work aiming to catalogue the earth’s life forms completely.
More information:
- View a video of Dr. Dan Janzen discussing DNA Barcoding.
- Learn more about using DNA barcoding to advance the discovery and identification of butterflies, moths, and skippers (i.e. Lepidoptera).
- Learn about the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project, an Ontario-led worldwide effort to use DNA barcoding to identify all the species in the world.
DNA barcode of Morpho amathonte
MHMXO694-08|07-SRNP-45266|Morpho amathonte|COI-5P-actttatattttatttttggaatttgagcaggtataatcggaacatccc
taagtctaattatccgaactgaattaggaaacccaagttttttaattggaaatgatcaaatttataatactattgtaacagctcatgcttttattataattttctttata
gtaataccaattataattggaggatttggaaattgacttgtacctctaatattaggggccccagatatagctttccctcgtataaataatataagattttgattatta
cctccatctttaattcttttaatttcaagaagaattgtagaaaatggagctggaactggatgaacagtttaccccccactttcatctaatattgcccatagaggagct
tctgtagatttggctattttttccttacatttagcagggatttcttccattttaggagctattaattttattactacaattattaatatacgaattaataatatatcttatgat
caaataccattatttgtttgagcagtaggaatcacagctctcttacttctcttatctttacctgtattagctggggcaattactatacttcttacagaccggaatcttaata
cttctttctttgaccctgctggaggaggagatcctattctttatcaacattta
Barcode courtesy of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project.
About the collaborators
Paul Hebert, PhD, a globally recognized pioneer of DNA Barcoding, is Canada Research Chair of Molecular Biodiversity and Director of the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding at the Biodiversity Institute, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is also Principal Investigator on the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project. Click here for more information about Dr. Hebert's work.
Dan Janzen, PhD, is an evolutionary ecologist, naturalist, and conservationist, and Dimaura Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. For 56 years he has spent much of his time doing field research in Costa Rica and since 1985 has been a founder and technical advisor to Area de ConservaciĂłn Guanacaste (ACG). ACG, 2% of Costa Rica and the size of New York City and all its suburbs, is the oldest, largest and most successful tropical habitat restoration project in the world, located just south of the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border. Click here for more information about Dr. Janzen's efforts.
Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI) is a private, not-for-profit corporation based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, focused on using world-class research to create strategic genomics resources and accelerate Ontario’s development of a globally-competitive life sciences sector. Through its relationship with Genome Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and other private and public sector partners, OGI works to: identify, attract and support investment in Ontario-led genomics research; catalyze access to and the impact of genomics resources; and, raise the visibility of genomics as well as its impact and associated issues. Click here to return to our home page and learn more about OGI.
What is the Area de ConservaciĂłn Guanacaste?
A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica is a vast protected ecosystem with an area of 120,000 terrestrial and 70,000 marine hectares. The ACG contains important natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity – approximately 230,000 species in total – including the best dry forest habitats from Central America to northern Mexico and key habitats for endangered or rare plant and animal species. The site demonstrates significant ecological processes in both its terrestrial and marine-coastal environments. (*modified from UNESCO)
The mission of the ACG is to conserve the biodiversity of the ecosystems and the cultural heritage present in the ACG, as a model of development which integrates society in the management of the Area. Learn more here.
For more information, click on these links of interest:
The art of Joseph Rossano
• Joseph Rossano’s official site
• Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta
DNA barcoding
• Barcode of Life Data Systems
• Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding
• International Barcode of Life (iBOL)
Biodiversity and conservation
• Area Conservacion de Guanacaste (Costa Rica)
Data and images from the ACG caterpillar rearing inventory
• Joe Rossano barcoded butterflies in Fusion Tables
• Other ACG barcoded butterflies in Fusion Table blog
• Janzen and Hallwachs caterpillar inventory database (*search for Morpho amathonte in the yellow box to the left)
