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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 ...
[6] [7] The vast majority of Lepidoptera are to be found in the tropics, but substantial diversity exists on most continents. North America has over 700 species of butterflies and over 11,000 species of moths, [8] [9] while there are about 400 species of butterflies and 14,000 species of moths reported from Australia. [10]
Lepidoptera is the insect order of moths and butterflies.It is divided in four suborders: Aglossata, Glossata, Heterobathmiina and Zeugloptera. Of these, Glossata is by far most speciose and contains both butterflies (which are further restricted to the clade Rhopalocera) and moths; the other three suborders are far smaller and solely contain moths.
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 ...
180,000 species of Lepidoptera are described, equivalent to 10% of the total described species of living organisms. [1] This is a list of the diversity of the Lepidoptera showing the estimated number of genera and species described for each superfamily and, where available, family. See Lepidoptera for a note of the schedule of families used.
Basic moth identification features. While the butterflies form a monophyletic group, the moths, comprising 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 ...
Basking is an activity which is more common in the cooler hours of the morning. Some species have evolved dark wingbases to help in gathering more heat and this is especially evident in alpine forms. [75] As in many other insects, the lift generated by butterflies is more than can be accounted for by steady-state, non-transitory aerodynamics.
Some species of Lepidoptera sequester or manufacture toxins which are stored in their body tissue, rendering them poisonous to predators; examples include the monarch butterfly in the Americas and Atrophaneura species in Asia. Predators that eat poisonous lepidopterans may become sick and vomit violently, and so learn to avoid those species.