Blue Morpho Butterfly Frame.

The blue is so saturated it reads as light rather than color, and in a way it is: it comes from microscopic ridges on the wing scales bending light back to your eye, not from any pigment. Turn the frame and the same wing goes matte brown, ringed with pale eyespots, the blue vanishing at an angle the way a hologram does.

Butterflies have stood for the soul in more traditions than can easily be counted. The Greek word psyche means both butterfly and soul, and folk memory across Central America still gives the insect a messenger's task, carrying word from those who have died.

This specimen was raised, not caught: farmed from egg to adult on a conservation farm in Costa Rica, one of a number of operations that breed morphos for study and display while funding the rainforest habitat the species needs in the wild. It is mounted by the traditional spread-and-pin method, wings set flat and symmetrical, then sealed away from dust and handling behind UV-filtered glass in a plain dark frame, sized to hang alone on a stretch of wall.

Details

• Blue morpho butterfly, wingspan about five inches
• Farm-raised in Costa Rica
• Spread-and-pin mount behind UV-filtered glass, plain dark frame

How to use

Hang it out of direct sun, where the blue will hold for decades rather than fade in a summer. A soul, or a wing, depending on which tradition you keep.