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The butterfly was sometimes depicted with the maw of a jaguar, and some species were considered to be the reincarnations of the souls of dead warriors. The close association of butterflies with fire and warfare persisted into the Aztec civilisation ; evidence of similar jaguar-butterfly images has been found among the Zapotec and Maya ...
Lepidoptera (/ ˌ l ɛ p ɪ ˈ d ɒ p t ər ə / LEP-ih-DOP-tər-ə) or lepidopterans is an order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths.About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organisms, [1] [2] making it the second largest insect order (behind Coleoptera) with 126 families [3] and 46 superfamilies ...
A Lepidoptera specimen drawer in a museum collection in Poland Another Lepidoptera specimen drawer in a museum collection in Poland. Lepidopterology (from Ancient Greek λεπίδος (lepídos) 'scale' πτερόν (pterón) 'wing' and -λογία [1]) is a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the two superfamilies of butterflies.
While the butterflies form a monophyletic group, the moths, which comprise the rest of the Lepidoptera, do not. Many attempts have been made to group the superfamilies of the Lepidoptera into natural groups, most of which fail because one of the two groups is not monophyletic: Microlepidoptera and Macrolepidoptera, Heterocera and Rhopalocera, Jugatae and Frenatae, Monotrysia and Ditrysia.
Between 950,000–1,000,000 of all described animal species are considered insects, so over 50% of all described eukaryotes (1.8 million species) are insects (see illustration). With only 950,000 known non-insects, if the actual total number of insects is 5.5 million, they may represent over 80% of the total, and with only about 20,000 new ...
The insect order Lepidoptera consists of moths and butterflies (43 superfamilies). [1] Most moths are night-flying, while the butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea ) are the mainly day-flying. Within Lepidoptera as a whole, the groups listed below before Glossata contain a few basal families accounting for less than 200 species; the bulk of ...
The butterflies form the clade Rhopalocera, which is composed of three superfamilies: Hedyloidea (the moth butterfly family Hedylidae), the Hesperioidea (the skipper family Hesperiidae), and the Papilionoidea (the true butterfly families Papilionidae, Pieridae, Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae, and Riodinidae). All of these families are monophyletic.
There has also been a history of people becoming entomologists through museum curation and research assistance, [11] such as Sophie Lutterlough at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Insect identification is an increasingly common hobby, with butterflies [ 12 ] and (to a lesser extent) dragonflies being the most popular.