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Butterfly evolution is the origin and diversification of butterflies through geologic time and over a large portion of the Earth's surface. The earliest known butterfly fossils are from the mid Eocene epoch, between 40-50 million years ago.
Butterflies evolved from moths, so while the butterflies are monophyletic (forming a single clade), the moths are not. The oldest known butterfly is Protocoeliades kristenseni from the Palaeocene aged Fur Formation of Denmark, approximately 55 million years old, which belongs to the family Hesperiidae (skippers). [ 9 ]
Three lineages of mimetic butterflies occur in North America and the evolution of mimicry may have played a large role in the diversification of this group. [9] For butterflies to travel from the Palearctic region to the Nearctic region of the world, the migration must have occurred during a time period when Beringia , the land bridge between ...
Regardless of the timing of the isthmus closer, biologists can study the species on the Pacific and Caribbean sides in, what has been called, "one of the greatest natural experiments in evolution." [ 244 ] Studies of snapping shrimp in the genus Alpheus have provided direct evidence of allopatric speciation events, [ 246 ] and contributed to ...
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is pushing for added protections for the monarch butterfly after suggesting multiple populations could go extinct in mere decades.
Vultures are a result of convergent evolution: both Old World vultures and New World vultures eat carrion, but Old World vultures are in the eagle and hawk family (Accipitridae) and use mainly eyesight for discovering food; the New World vultures are of obscure ancestry, and some use the sense of smell as well as sight in hunting. Birds of both ...
They evolved about the time that flowering plants underwent an expansive adaptive radiation in the mid-Cretaceous, and the Gelechioidea that evolved at this time also have great diversity. Whether the processes involved co-evolution or sequential evolution, the diversity of the Lepidoptera and the angiosperms increased together.
Birds are one of only four taxonomic groups to have evolved powered flight. A number of animals are capable of aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. This trait has appeared by evolution many times, without any single common ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times in separate animals: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and ...