Butterfly Facts
A butterfly is a flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, and belongs to one of the superfamilies Hesperioidea (the skippers) or Papilionoidea (all other butterflies). Some authors would include also members of the superfamily Hedyloidea, the American butterfly moths. Many butterflies have striking colours and patterns on their wings. When touched by humans, they tend to lose some scales, that look like a fine powder. If they lose too many scales, their ability to fly will be impaired. People who study or collect butterflies (or the closely related moths) are called lepidopterists. Butterfly watching is growing in popularity as a hobby.
Several species of butterflies need more sodium than provided by the nectar they drink from flowers. As such, they are attracted to the sodium in salt (which the males often give to the females to ensure fertility). As human sweat contains significant quantities of salt, they sometimes land on people, to the delight of the young at heart everywhere.
The scales on the butterfly wings have many properties, mostly optical, that interest scientists. The pattern they make are also seen as the best animal system for understanding the developmental and genetic processes that produce morphological variation in nature. Butterflies are considered one of the model organisms for a variety of fields of study, spanning ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation biology
Etymology
A false etymology claims that the word butterfly came from a metathesis of "flutterby"; however, the Old English word was buttorfleoge and a similar word occurs in Dutch, apparently because butterflies were thought to steal milk. An alternative folk etymology, current in Great Britain, is that it originated as a contraction of term butter-coloured fly referring to the Brimstone Butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni, often the first butterfly of Spring.
Classification
Although the butterflies are classified in two superfamilies, Hesperioidea and Papilionoidea, these are sister taxa, so the butterflies collectively are thought to constitute a true clade. Some modern taxonomists place them all in superfamily Papilionoidea, distinguishing the skippers from the other butterflies at the series level only. There is only one family in the Hesperioidea (or series Hesperiiformes), the skipper family Hesperiidae. The families usually recognised in the Papilionoidea (or Papilioniformes) are:-
- Swallowtails and Birdwings, Family Papilionidae
- Whites or Yellow-Whites, Family Pieridae
- Blues and Coppers or Gossamer-Winged Butterflies, Family Lycaenidae
- Metalmark butterflies, Family Riodinidae
- Brush-footed butterflies, Family Nymphalidae
Butterflies and moths are often confused with each other. Although there are many ways of distinguishing a butterfly from a moth, See the difference between a butterfly and a moth, there are exceptions to every rule and it is perhaps better to think of Butterflies as a group of day flying moths.
A major new study (Wahlberg et al., 2005) combining morphological and molecular data concluded that Hesperiidae, Papilionidae, Pieridae, Lycaenidae and Riodinidae could all be strongly supported as monophyletic clades, but the status of Nymphalidae is equivocal. Lycaenidae and Riodinidae were confirmed as sister taxa, and Papilionidae as the outgroup to the rest of the true butterflies, but the location of Pieridae within the pattern of descent was unclear, with different lines of evidence suggesting different conclusions. The data suggested that the Hedyloidea are indeed more closely related to the butterflies than to other moths.
Some older classifications recognize additional families, for example Danaidae, Heliconiidae, Libytheidae and Satyridae, but modern classifications treat these as subfamilies within the Nymphalidae.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly