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Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran suborder Rhopalocera, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the superfamilies Hedyloidea (moth-butterflies in the Americas) and Papilionoidea (all others).
6 days ago · Learn about butterflies, colorful and diverse insects that belong to the order Lepidoptera. Find out how they feed, mate, and undergo metamorphosis, and explore their different families and species.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Different Kinds of Butterflies in North America
- The Monarch
- The Viceroy
- Red-Spotted Purple
- Great Spangled Fritillary
- Tiger Swallowtail
This guide will help you identify the yellow-and-black butterflies flying around your Buddleia bush or the big black butterfly winging past you on a camping trip. Not every orange butterfly you see is a monarch! The butterflies of North America are many and varied, and to identify butterflies, you will probably need some help. So here is a quick gu...
The magnificent monarch may be the most well-known and best-loved of all our insects. There is something truly regal about its size, bright colors, and powerful, soaring flight, but its kingly name supposedly comes from the spotted margins of its wings, which resemble the sable-edged robes worn by royalty at the time of its discovery. Nearly everyo...
It's hard to believe that this insect is completely unrelated to the monarch. The Viceroy gets its name from its resemblance to the popular monarch butterfly (they're both royalty—get it?). They are so similar that this butterfly's identification relies largely on a quite minor difference in the hindwing markings. The Viceroy is one of the most wel...
The red-spotted purple is closely related to—get this—the viceroy (the monarch-mimicking red-and-black butterfly pictured above). Even better, this pretty black-and-blue butterfly is believed to mimic the poisonous pipeline swallowtail (check this species out further down). That makes the Limenitisgenus a pretty amazing bunch of copy-cats, adapting...
This bright orange butterfly wings fast across fields and around forest edges in mid-to-late summer. Some researchers think its orange color is meant to mimic the poisonous monarch butterfly's colors; if so, that makes it yet another in the orange-butterfly mimic category that may also include over a dozen unrelated species. The great spangled has ...
These big, beautiful butterflies can be identified by their bold yellow-and-black stripes, hence their common name. These tigers have an unusual life history. The adults are on the wing in mid-summer, wheeling high among the branches of ash and cherry trees, where the big females lay their eggs. The caterpillar, which is green with little "false ey...
6 days ago · Learn about the monarch butterfly, a large and colorful insect that migrates thousands of kilometers to overwinter in Mexico. Find out how it feeds, breeds, and adapts to different environments, and what dangers it faces from habitat loss and climate change.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Butterfly: A Life | National Geographic. Great Migrations: Rhythm of Life: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com... Check out the lifecycle of a monarch butterfly - from pupa to adult. Sub...
- 2 min
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- National Geographic
Learn about the monarch butterfly, one of the most recognizable and well studied butterflies on the planet. Find out how they use milkweed, migrate, and face threats to their survival.
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Due to their bright colors and visits to flowers, butterflies are the most familiar of insects to humans. There are about 17,500 species of butterflies in the world, and around 750 species in the United States. Distinctive characteristics.
