Talk:Butterfly/Archive 1

Archive 1

Origin of the word

Modern Dutch certainly does not have a word like flutterby', the word in vlinder. There are a number of dialects with words that de contain the element boter-, but it is not thought that that has anything to do with milk. nl:Gebruiker:Jcwf. See also discussion on Dutch Vlinder page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.208.8 (talk) 02:58, 30 July 2003 (UTC)

I definitely think something about the etymology should be on the main page. I can find the following links:

• http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_etymology_of_butterfly
• http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=butterfly
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/butterfly
• http://www.insects.org/ced4/etymology.html

09:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC) nl:Gebruiker:Tazelaar

I wonder why Tannin changed the plural form "Praying mantids" to the singular form "Praying mantis" under the list of predators. Do you perhaps notice that all the other items in the list are plural (i.e., "Flies", "Ants", "Beetles", etc.)? --Jose Ramos 13:53, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Mantid is not the plural form. A mantid is a member of the Mantis genus, and if any thing is more singular than mantis (Chambers dictionary). jimfbleak

If you read what I wrote above, I said that "mantids" (which is plural) was changed to "mantis" (which is singular). I suppose one could say "mantises", or "mantes", but I think "mantids" is the best choice. In any case, a plural form is called for to conform with the rest of the list. --Jose Ramos 18:28, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I thought I might put this in: As in the first line butterfly is flutterby reversed around. But I also read that originally the "butter-fly" was a type of butterfly somewhere in the mountains that was bright yellow (like butter) and it flew (like a fly) signaling the time of spring. Eventually other species in lepidoptera all shared the same name. But I think this is only a story, or maybe just a thought to their name origin. --JamesDouch (talk) 01:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Your starting point needs to be a verifiable source for your edit. There is more than one suggested etymological origin of the word but neiher of these figure.Tmol42 (talk) 12:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll post a followup to the bottom of this page. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 00:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it needs to be pointed out that this explanation in the article makes no sense whatsoever since there is no such thing as butterfly excrement: "points out a Dutch synonym boterschijte in Kilian, which suggests that the insect was so called from the appearance of its excrement".[4] --Sarabseth (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Scales

It is untrue to say that butterfly "structural coloration is the result of coherent scattering of light by the photonic crystal nature of the scales.". The term "photonic crystal" is generally understood to be (used as)synonymous with a "photonic band gap material" which is one very specific and comparatively rare kind of colour-producing structure-

see e.g. H. Ghiradella, "Hairs Bristles and Scales" in "Microscopic anatomy of Invertebrates", M. Locke (Ed) Vol 11A: Insecta, John Wiley and Sons, New Yorks, 1998, H.Ghiradella "Fine Structure of Basic Lepidopteran Scales" Chapter 3 in "Structural colors in biological systems- principles and applications" Ed. S. Kinoshita and S. Yoshioka, Osaka University Press, 2005, or V. L. Welch "Photonic crystals in biology", Chapter 2 in "Structural colors in biological systems- principles and applications" Ed. S. Kinoshita and S. Yoshioka, Osaka University Press, 2005,

Although one or two authors sometimes use the term "photonic structure" to mean any kind of colour-producing structure, it is not generally used this way and maintaining the distinction is relevant because photonic crystals have different optical properties from other colour producing structures and appear to be formed by different bio-assembly mechanisms. Photonic crystals are actually a fairly rare kind of colour producing structure in the living world, compared with for example multi-layer reflectors or even diffraction gratings. The 3 references cited in support of this statement do not support it- they are simply examples of colour-producing structures.

Please correct this sentence, therefore, to something like "structural coloration is the result of coherent scattering of light by the highly regular microstructure of the scales".

V. L. Welch, University of Namur. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.48.16.169 (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

<div> </div> markers

I've taken out the <div> encoding because on my screen (so presumably other people's) it was generating huge amounts of whitespace at the head of the article, alongside the taxobox - not sure why. seglea 05:39, 11 May 2004 (UTC) Thanks! it was doing that on this page last time i came to it to show my class something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.156.135 (talk) 22:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Lifespan?

Some information on the length of each part of the lifecycle would be nice...

How long does it take to go from egg to pupa, chrysalis to butterfly, etc.?

I would also like to know this please as it is the specific information i am searching for.

• This varies from species to species and is highly temperature dependent. It can also vary within the species by time of year -- some pupae will emerge directly while others later in the season will overwinter. There is no way to summarize this at this taxonomic level. Satyrium 12:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I too had come to this article looking for the same piece of information. I wanted to find out the life expectancy of an adult butterfly. Does it live for a few weeks, few months, or longer? I think some broad idea about this might be relevant in the article.Civilizededucation (talk) 14:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Pictures

If somebody could determinate the species, the GFDL pictures on User:Donarreiskoffer/butterflies might be useful. need more pictures —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swartley (talk • contribs) 16:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Photographs

I just added some photographs to the gallery. I'm no expert (to put it mildly) and I've only managed to get one butterfly identified, the Glasswing. Now I'm not sure, though, if that is a Godyris duillia or a Ithomiini (or is it both, at different levels of the taxonomic tree? Like I said, I'm no expert). The other two I haven't a clue, so if anyone knows...

For more photos that need identifying (not of butterflies, though) see User:DirkvdM/Photographs#Plants_and_Animals. DirkvdM 09:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Dutch?

Under etymology it says the Old English word was buttorfleoge and a similar word occurs in Dutch. What is that Dutch word? I'm Dutch and I don't know it. Might it be old Dutch? The modern word is 'vlinder'. The Dutch article (which, by the way, has some beautiful images of the tongue and scales) doesn't mention it. DirkvdM 09:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

This article Dialectbenamingen voor de vlinder states that a word such as botervlieg couldn't be found, but a lot of words like vlieboter, vliebouter, vliewouter exist(ed) in Dutch, which makes it very probable the English word is an inversion of something corresponding to *flybutter and stems from Germanic *fîfaldrôn (cf. German Falter, related to Latin papilio). Everything else (such as yellowish excrements of caterpillars, or witches sending out butterflies to steal butter) is funny folklore but no sound etymology.--84.188.174.176 18:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

A friend of mine who grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country suggested the original word for butterfly was "flutterby", but over the years it was transposed into "butterfly". This actually seems logical enough to be at least folklore. Are there any historians or linguists out there that can put facts to this?--74.107.74.39 (talk) 00:41, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Butterfly photos

Could we please avoid photos of obviously mounted specimens placed in supposedly natural settings? The Peacock and Comma photos can be clearly seen to be of dead and mounted butterflies by their unnatural wing positions.

Change of Photos

I propose to change the two unidentified photos of a Papilionid and Nympnalid and replace them (as of now) with a Pierid, Common Jezebel (Delias eucharis) and Lycaenid, Red Pierrot, (Talicada nyseus). I am also considering better photos or other species. Inadvertantly Nymphalids and Papilionids appear to be over-represented, probably, because they have such beautiful butterflies :). I shall make the changes after a week or so. Any views please? If you do, please log them in this talk page itself. If there are no views or objections, I will unilaterally go ahead after ten days. AshLin 14:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It is fine for me.→Carlosp420 14:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Before I could get myself to change any photos the text distressed me. On the face of it everything is fine, but see the features of quality articles listed in the WikiProjects Arthropod such as Krill or Spider. Gave me an inferiority complex! This article stands out like a misshapen potato. We got to make it much, much better. :

• It does not read either for a beginner or for a informed user.
• The sequencing did not seem logical, so I have made an initial change.
• Lots of interesting facts about butterflies such as aposematism, mimicry etc do not find place.
• Butterfly anatomy is ignored (see Krill for a concise diagram and description).
• 'Wing development in larva' and some taxonomic issues are over detailed compared to the rest of the article. They need to be moved out once appropriate articles on these emerges.
• Not enough, interesting, good enough, well chosen photos.
• A very American flavour, needs neutral point and global point of view.

Considering that Butterflies is a much more traditional, popular and fertile field than Krill, it distresses me that we are nowhere near good enough. This is a clarion call to battle. All you aurelians out there lets pitch in and make this worthy of being called a feature article. FlaME ME IF YOU LIKE BUT BUNG IN STUFF, IDEAS, PHOTOS, TEXTS. Let this page shine forth!

AshLin 05:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

A new nice resource to see and use

Lt Col C.T. Bingham, late of the Indian Army, wrote two seminal texts on Indian Butterflies. They are :- Fauna of British India - Butterflies, Vol 1 (1905) and Vol 2 (1907).

Unfortunately only three families were dealt with before he passed away - Papilionidae, Pieridae and Lycaenidae. The work is in public domain and the books are available as 30 MB downloads. The Indian Butterfly Wiki-endeavour has uploaded some woodcut images into WM Commons for use in the articles. We have arranged them in a nice gallery there at :-

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bingham%27s_Fauna_of_British_India_%28Butterflies%29

Since we dont have all our stubs up yet, we are yet to use many of them, but do visit the following link to see how using two woodcut images has added a touch of class to our articles :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Butterflies_of_India_%28Papilionidae%29

Presentation does matter folks. Please use these images wherever you can and make our effort of uploading 54 of them worthwhile.

Regards, AshLin 15:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Asia -> Orient

Asia as a region is too large and definetly unacceptable in the context. Orient is correct but it has a number of connotations which could get confusing. Reverted to Orient till a better option is found.

Interwiki-problem

A lot of the iw-links here seem to go to various pages describing the entire order of Lepidoptera rather than Butterflies.--81.234.166.95 15:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yet another photograph

I'd like to propose this spectacular image, Image:Butterfly_macro_shot.jpg, for the taxobox (possibly with a crop), but it's unidentified. Anyone care to classify it? Sandstein 17:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Its a swallowtail butterfly, cant id the species accurately. AshLin 18:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Photographs

Hello I have a few closeup butterfly pictures, they are under creative commoms licence. I don't know much about butterflies, I'd be glad if anyone could classify them and use them here. http://flickr.com/photos/pankaj/tags/butterfly/

Rhopalocera in Taxobox

A user reading the Taxobox will see "Division: Rhopalocera" above "Phylum: Arthropoda", even though the former is rightly listed after the latter in the code. I presume this is because "Division" is interpreted as a plant division, equivalent to an animal phylum. Apart from redesignating Rhopalocera an unranked taxon, is there any way to reshuffle this sequence? Cephal-odd 05:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

request for protection

I have noticed this page is vandalized A LOT! So I have put in a request for protection on an administrator page. I originally put the "protection tag" at the top, but it doesn't seem to be stopping the twits from doing it. When it is “officially” protected, anonymous users without accounts or those with accounts under 4 days old will not be able to edit this page. This will cut down on the Vandalism from outside users. And if an established user does vandalize it, all we have to do is report them and after several warnings on their user page, their account will be deleted. Then they won’t be able to edit any protected articles if they don’t have an account!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 22:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC))

And what to do about old vandal users like Sholt.60, which is vandalizing several butterfly pages. Carlosp420 16:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You are supposed to give them several warnings on their talk page, which you get from the vandalism template page. If they pass up four (I think), you put their name on the vandal page and they are blocked from editing for a period of time. If they keep on doing it, then their account will be deleted. But I'm sure the administrators will give them every chance to reform before they delete his account. But if he is an "old vandal", I doubt he will reform. (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 17:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

Parthenogenesis

Does anyone know if there are any parthenogenetic butterflies ? Any references ? Shyamal 08:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Animated gif/png images

Although these can be useful for demonstrating certain ideas, I wonder what the opinion on creating image slideshows is ? It appears distracting and often hard to examine the correctness of images shown apart from being useless in other media such as print. Would personally opt to remove such images in favour of a gallery of the constituent images if absolutely needed. Shyamal 05:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of comments, have removed the animated gifs. Shyamal 13:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Butterfly flight (citations needed)

The article states that butterfly flight is well understood and quantified. It points to Insect flight for more information and here there is a reference

• Srygley, R. B. and A. L. R. Thomas (2002) Aerodynamics of insect flight: flow visualisations with free flying butterflies reveal a variety of unconventional lift-generating mechanisms. Nature 420: 660-664. PDF

Flying insects generate forces that are too large to be accounted for by conventional steady-state aerodynamics1,2. To investigate these mechanisms of force generation, we trained red admiral butterflies, Vanessa atalanta, to fly freely to and from artificial flowers in a wind tunnel, and used high-resolution, smoke-wire flow visualizations to obtain qualitative, high-speed digital

images of the air flow around their wings. The images show that free-flying butterflies use a variety of unconventional aerodynamic mechanisms to generate force: wake capture, two different types of leading-edge vortex, active and inactive upstrokes, in addition to the use of rotational mechanisms and the Weis–Fogh ‘clap-and-fling’ mechanism. Free-flying butterflies often used different aerodynamic mechanisms in successive strokes. There seems to be no one ‘key’ to insect flight, instead insects rely on a wide array of aerodynamic

mechanisms to take off, manoeuvre, maintain steady flight, and for landing.

This seems to be contrary to the statements given in the paragraph on flight. Hope someone can add citations to support the statements made there. Shyamal 13:28, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Modified the flight section to more conventional understanding with citation. Shyamal 15:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Morpho rhetenor helena?

The label in the picture captioned "Morpho rhetenor helena" says "Morpho anaxibia". Shinobu 18:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The Dutch wiki captions this picture:

as Morpho Helena. Looks like the same species to me, but I may be mistaken. Shinobu 19:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Butterfly alphabet ????

Is this section(butterfly alphabet) really necessary. I really dont see any real relevance --Viren 15:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It came with a non-free image of the butterfly alphabet. The image got deleted but the text has stayed. Shyamal 01:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I just got a warning for removing that ridiculous, obviously incorrect section about butterflies being related to peanut butter and "dating back to 'the period of ripped jeans.'" Why is that? That erroneous information is visible from a mile away! If Wiki wants to suffer in reputation for not even being able to maintain a reasonably cogent entry on the butterfly, then it can. Idiots.

Thanks for spotting it. This article is so constantly attacked by vandals without logged on user names that your edit was probably recognized as one. Shyamal 01:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge with moth

As butterflies and moths are basically the same, wouldn't it be a good idea to merge the two articles, and add a section that discusses the two terms? A book I have called 'Animals: A Definitive Visual Guide' says 'There is no clear-cut difference between butterflies and moths - and no scientific basis for separating them'. It then goes on to discuss the differences they tend to have.

There are actually moths that have more in common with butterflies, and don't conform to the general rules and vice versa.--Jcvamp 18:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for Identification

I figured that this was the best place to ask; I just uploaded a picture to the commons of a butterfly that was in my lawn here in Saskatoon, Canada. Can anyone ID it? :)

-- Limulus 09:17, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on some of the other images in the commons, could it be some variant of Limenitis arthemis? -- Limulus 09:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on a Google translation of this page[1] it does appear to be Limenitis arthemis arthemis If I'm wrong though, feel free to correct me on its page :) -- Limulus 09:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Moth

Here's the link to a discussion I brought up related to this article. þ 20:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

-Actually disregard the above statement, I see the cladistics are represented; wow this is a good article! þ 20:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Need help indentifying some butterflies

I recently took a trip to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, where their Costa Rican Glasshouse contains over 20 different butterfly species. I took some nice photographs, but I need help identifying the butterflies. Once I get the names right, I'll upload high-res copies of the photos to Wikipedia for this article. Can you please help? MamaGeek ^{(talk/contrib)} 11:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Butterfly 1
• Butterfly 2 photo 1 Butterfly 2 photo 2
• Butterfly 3
• Butterfly 4
• Butterfly 5
• Butterfly 6 photo 1 Butterfly 6 photo 2

Keep an eye out for responses here Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera/Unidentified pictures. Shyamal 14:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You can have a go at this website [2], choose clearwing butterflies on the left and follow the instructions. Shyamal 14:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Unidentified Specimen Photographs

I'm of the opinion external links to pages of unidentified butterfly photos add nothing to this article. Nickrz 12:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to remove such uninformative external links. A lot are added for publicity by the website / blog owners and its hard to keep an eye on every edit. Shyamal 01:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Citation needed

"The adults, caterpillars and pupas of some species form part of the diet in many parts of the world." Statement removed in the absence of citations. Is it diet of humans or of insectivores ? Replace appropriately with citation. Shyamal 08:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Image Quality; Cropping and Identification

In my humble opinion, the denizens of Wikipedia should require images of the highest quality be displayed in their articles. I have removed many images which I consider poor quality and lacking in content for these reasons:

• Poor resolution, tiny images. In this day of ubiquitous digital cameras, we should have a plethora of good quality, in focus, high resolution photographs or drawings that display notable diagnostic features.
  
• Poor cropping. Large pictures of flowers or landscapes with tiny butterflies may look nice, but are not conducive to an encyclopedia article. Yes, of course, we need and like artistic photographs and compositions, but the subject, after all, is "butterflies", not "flowers."
  
• Is the subject identifiable? Of course, we are all kidding ourselves: Except for the highest quality macrophotographs which are fortunate enough to show distinct diagnostic features of well-known and well-defined species, most photographs do not convey enough information for conclusive identification to species level. That being said, I'm of the opinion enough diagnostic tools exist that gross (if unintentional) misidentifications will be weeded out by the users, and that we need not suffer large thumbnails designated "some kind of metalmark" or similar vague captioning.
  

Photographs should display enough diagnostic markings or have enough research or provenance behind them that a person reasonably well-versed in butterfly identification would not disagree; I think the place to document an identification is on the description page at Wikimedia Commons, not in the caption of a picture gallery. At the very least, I would think, a location and date of a photograph should be included, no? Thank you for listening.Nickrz 13:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• What was wrong with this image, which has been removed (perhaps by someone else)? MamaGeek ^{(talk/contrib)} 03:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Heliconius

Etymology of word

I had read that there was conflicting origins of the word butterfly, and that it was one of the oldest compound words. Could someone add it to the article? I do not see any information on it other than http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Butterfly#Etymology. 202.172.126.182 (talk) 00:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

According to my 8-year-old daughter, the term "butterfly" derives from the fact that they carry pollen all over their bodies - like a spread of butter. And additionally that their wings present a smooth, "buttery" tactile sensation. Personally, this explanation makes more sense to me than any of the other postulations out there! (Kaia, 2015, age 8)

Need to know

I dont know anything about butterflies myself, i have spotted this beautiful species in my garden which I have never seen it before. It's red and dark grey in colour, it's got two red lines on outer parts of the wings with two red dots on the ends, middle of the wings are all red. Please could someone tell me more about this beautiful butterfly and it's name. Thanks & Kind Regards Monica —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.120 (talk) 10:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

What is this species?

I took a picture of a butterfly and need to know the species. Thanks.

Here is the picture Thanks, Smuckers ^{It has to be good} 21:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a Northern Pearly-eye (Enodia anthedon). It helps to know where the picture was taken. DGERobertson (talk) 02:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Distribution

This article needs a section on Distribution. To start:- Aldwell, B. 2003. A survey of widespread resident butterflies in County Donegal, Ireland. Bull. Ir. biogeog. Soc No.27. p.187 - 199.Osborne 08:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

what else about buterfly

what do they do? what do they do to survive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.91.155 (talk) 18:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC) blahh ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.69.115.107 (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection

I've semi-protected the article due to the excessive vandalism today. Kaldari (talk) 01:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Pictures of Framed Butterflies missing

I saw two pictures of beautifully framed butterflies a few months back. Where are they?119.111.86.75 (talk) 02:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If you were referring to the butterflies in acrylic they were deemed poor quality images below WP standard.Tmol42 (talk) 17:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Common Buckeye image

I have just reverted addition of a second image of another pair of Buckeyes mating as the existing image is there as part of a sequence of pictures reflecting the four stage metamorphosis. I considered if it was an improvement on the current image but IMHO although a decent image the first won out by a small margin and was already in situ anyway, no grief if others feel differently though Tmol42 (talk) 11:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

External LInk Suggestion

{{editsemiprotected}}

• Online videos of Skippers of the Northeast-USA —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gristwik (talk • contribs)

Resolved

--$\xi ri\pi i\vartheta \alpha \xi$ 13:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Migration

Many butterflies migrate over long distances. Particularly famous migrations are those of the Monarch butterfly from Mexico to North America

Mexico is part of North America. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.242.85.241 (talk) 17:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Fixed. DGERobertson (talk) 23:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Life stages/holometabolis

It is absolutely ridiculous that this article states that butterflies have a "unusual life cycle" and that it explains the life-cycle of holometabolis insects. This is like explaining what book is on the War and Peace page or how countries are run on the Mexico page.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 17:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The article still needs cleanup. The article may be able to utilize a description of the various stages, but a basic description of the egg, larvae, pupae, and adult is not pertinent to the article. Also, to whomever originally wrote the article this way: Not only is the life cycle that butterflies undergo the most common life cycle among insects, it's the most common among arthropods, invertebrates, animals, and all life. "Unusual" portrays the exact opposite of reality.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 18:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Typo?

Shouldn't it be "wisteria flower" instead of "wisteriaflower"? 180.1.98.228 (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Seasonal Polyphenism

Bicyclus anynana is a species of butterfly that exhibits a clear example of seasonal polyphenism. These butterflies, endemic to Africa, have two distinct phenotypic forms that alternate according to the season. The wet-season forms have large, very apparent ventral eyespots whereas the dry-season forms have very reduced, oftentimes nonexistent, ventral eyespots. Larvae that develop in hot, wet conditions develop into wet-season adults where as those growing in the transition from the wet to the dry season, when the temperature is declining, develop into dry-season adults.

This polyphenism has an adaptive role in B. anynana. In the dry-season it is disadvantageous to have conspicuous eyespots because they blend in with the brown vegetation better without eyespots. By not developing eyespots in the dry-season they can more easily camouflage themselves in the brown brush. This minimizes the risk of visually mediated predation. In the wet-season, these brown butterflies cannot as easily rely on cryptic coloration for protection because the background vegetation is green. Thus, antipredation mechanisms, such as eyespots, are beneficial. CCEvo-lbarsness (talk) 23:19, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused, this is a talk page, did you want to do something with this?--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 21:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Missing language

I request editing in order to add the Haitian creole equivalent to the list of languages in the left-side column. Rajkiandris--Rajkiandris (talk) 06:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you must be refering to the interwiki links to articles in other languages. I seached the for a Wikipedia article on the Butrterfly, written in Haitian Creole here but could not find on linked via the portal on Biology here but maybe you can locate one which I can help you add.Tmol42 (talk) 16:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It's there and was apparently there the whole time. ht:Papiyon Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Geraldo21, 19 July 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

In the first paragraph of the article (the overview) the word "economically" is used as opposed to the (I believe) intended "ecologically." Unless the writer was being extraordinarily indirect describing the benefits of butterflies, I don't believe the butterfly is "economically important." It should be "ecologically important."

Geraldo21 (talk) 14:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done: I agree with you. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 15:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Evolution

This article seems very informative, but I was wondering if someone could add a section on the evolutionary history of butterflies. For other organisms there are sections on evolutionary history and I was curious why there was none on this article. Is it because there is not enough information available? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.81.203 (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You can read Lepidoptera (which means butterflies and moths). They have a section on evolution of Lepidoptera. AshLin (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

etymology

A followup to the "origin of the word" thread from earlier in the page:

It's part of linguistic folklore that just about every language's word for butterfly has its own unique etymology. This is in contrast to most words like "cat" (fr. chat, ger. Katz, spanish gato etc.) that are cognate across many languages. An article by William Beeman[3] has some more info. I'd like to find the unpublished paper by Haj Ross (a syntactician whose work I've gotten interested in) that Beeman refers to. I think it's worth adding something to the article about this, but I can't do it because the article is semi-protected. Note that Beeman is an anthropologist rather than a linguist, and the linguistics info in the article is apparently not terribly reliable. But actual linguists have apparently written about the topic; I may try chasing down more references as time permits. I like Beeman's quotation of Ross and was thinking the etymology topic including the Ross quote could go in the "in culture" section of the article. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 00:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Vildevalle, 1 September 2011

Hello id like to ad a link here, in the external link section, to my butterfly website, http://www.swishmade.dk/smf/smf.html it is photos from denmark, thailand, guadeloupe and greece.

Best regards Henrik Dalgaard

Vildevalle (talk) 13:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Not done: Please see WP:NOTGALLERY and our external links guideline. — Bility (talk) 17:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Basic needs

Hi, this question may seem odd, but… do butterflies produce feces (or frass)?

Anyway, it would be interesting to know; and (given there size, lifespan, food, etc.) the answer may not be so simple… so please inform the world by (at least) posting it here! Thanks!

90.36.118.249 (talk) 18:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Response: While looking around for any mentions of etymology of the word, I saw a link in the sources, which more or less answered my question, and answered yours too. Here's the quote:
"The Oxford English Dictionary notes some old Dutch words “botervlieg” and “boterschijte,” and conjectures that butterflies’ excrement may have been thought to resemble butter, hence giving the name “butter-shit,” then “butter-fly”. "
Which, I'm afraid to say, I found rather amusing.
Source: insects.org
Please tell me if I didn't answer this question in the proper format, as I'm a bit of a noob. MrProfessorQ (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Etymology of 'butterflies'

Most etymological dictionaries say the word derives from 'butter + fly'. And often you find the story that butterflies are attracted by milk and butter, which I think is a fairy tale story. In my view the first element of the word has to do with the word family 'to beat', French 'battre' and probably 'to flutter'. The fluttering or flapping of wings is one characteristic feature of these insects and it would be most probable that this characteristic was the idea for the name-giving at the beginning. But I would like to know if the story of milk and butter is a fairy-tale story or if there is something to this story. --Rogermue (talk) 06:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rogermue (talk • contribs) 05:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I googled this and found that wiktionary has the etymology so, as this has been been an ongoing question, I've copied it into this article. Unfortunately the second paragraph was not referenced but it sounds reasonable. If someone can find references for it that would be good. Richerman (talk) 11:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 April 2013

Historyknowledge (talk) 02:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC) i would like to edit some of the articles because there are many grammar and spelling mistakes i would like to fix. for example they said "some of there wings look like this when they age older because..."

when its suppose to be " some of their wings look like this when they age older because..."

So this is why i would like to edit some articles because of their spelling mistakes.

thank you.

Welcome to Wikipedia. You can edit semiprotected articles, after your account becomes autoconfirmed. This usually happens after your account is at least 4 days old and you have made at least 10 edits. RudolfRed (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 April 2013

The part of the article where it says that "blood" is pumped into the wings of the butterfly is inaccurate. Butterflies do not have blood, they use hemolymph. Please change the word blood to hemolymph.

76.174.66.157 (talk) 01:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

 Done Arctic Kangaroo 08:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Additions

I have added the Large White as a notable species under the family Pieris. Thanks!

Ichooxu (talk) 01:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Symbolism

The quote attributed to Jose Rizal -- "The Oriental chrysalis... is about to leave its cocoon" -- is either a mistranslation, manufactured or simply wrong. Chrysalides and cocoons are both pupal coverings, and occur in different kinds of insects. A chrysalis can't leave anything; it is the covering the developed imago leaves. The footnote leads to the website joserizal.info, which has a very amateurish appearance and appears to have been created by an enthusiast who is not a historian. Because it does not add much to the understanding of butterfly symbolism, I would delete the whole paragraph. 2601:9:2980:74C:E0D2:D884:D3E8:20E8 (talk) 20:59, 23 February 2014 (UTC) mazzworld2002@yahoo.com

Done Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2014

Some butterflies have and parasitic relationships with organisms including protozoans...wording (and should be taken out)

74.93.254.249 (talk) 18:10, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Done Cannolis (talk) 03:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 September 2014

The external links to "Horticultural Society Exhibition" and "Literaturatenbank" are broken and should be corrected or removed. 98.124.11.221 (talk) 22:29, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Done Cannolis (talk) 03:22, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Superfamily link

change ((superfamily)) to ((Superfamily (zoology)|superfamily))

Done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

How Butterflies mate?

This article did not talk about how s matting at butterflies and detail with it marked as good !! --Muhib mansour (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Added. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:32, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Are they on the endangered list?

I notice on the margin this article didn't state what thier population catogory was. Nithin.danday (talk) 00:32, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Not possible, as there are many species of butterfly, some least concern, some endangered, many in between. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:03, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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addition to life cycle section

I added the sentence "Simple photoreceptor cells located at the genitals are important for this and other "adult" behaviors.[32]" and reference. DennisPietras (talk) 19:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Dennis, that's fine but there is no need to tell anyone on the talk page what edits you've made - anyone interested will have the page on their watchlist and will see what's been changed. Welcome to wikipedia and happy editing. Richerman (talk) 07:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

why are they pretty?

what is the evolutionary mechanism there? i'll include a source on the subject, but i wanted to say i think it would be nice to include it in the article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150307-butterflies-caterpillars-colors-predators-prey-animals-science/ Sassunach (talk) 05:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

You're looking for the Butterfly#Defences, specifically Batesian and Mullerian mimicry. Bright colors, etc. are intended as warning signs for predators. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:54, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

two earliest fossil dates

while the intro part states the earliest fossil was found in Paleocene, under the section 'taxonomy amd phylogeny' it states it was already im Jurassic. As the latter is sourced I believe it to be the correct one. Sjapacap (talk) 10:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Hearing

One sentence (in the article);

Some butterflies have organs of hearing and some species make stridulatory and clicking sounds.[64]

Any chance of some more info?

Which families?

Do the wings count as “ears”

Are the sensory organs on the wing, thorax, abdomen?

How useful is hearing to a butterfly?

Does flying interfere with hearing?

MBG02 (talk) 06:59, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Phylogeny

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1731/1093 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk • contribs) 13:03, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

snakes are not reptiles!!!!

snakes are a type of cat! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.79.74 (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Question/issue with a cocoon line

Within the "Pupa" section is the following line:

While some caterpillars spin a cocoon to protect the pupa, most species do not.

As far as I can tell there are no species of butterfly that spin cocoons, and all pupa which spin cocoons are moth species. This is also stated in the General Description section of this article:

The pupa or chrysalis, unlike that of moths, is not wrapped in a cocoon.

If there is a species of butterfly which spins a cocoon, can we get a citation for that? Otherwise the line seems incorrect to me.

I apologise if this has been brought up before, I couldn't find it in the archives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peculiarist (talk • contribs) 15:39, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Identification of a moth.

How can I upload a picture of a beautiful moth that I have 2 of? I found them both dead (at different times) and would like to know what their name is. Achildofgod.dt (talk) 00:16, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@Achildofgod.dt: That's not something Wikipedia does, but if you Google something like " what's this bug " or " what's this moth ", you will find some good resources. Best of luck, SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2021

2001:8F8:1723:A5EF:CD70:5E94:6D53:3B15 (talk) 04:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — IVORK _Talk 04:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Butterfly

What's about butterfly in here birth and death ? 103.155.210.138 (talk) 14:35, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2022

Butterfly: Declining Numbers

Butterfly numbers have drastically dropped 50% in the year 2021. In addition to climate changes contributing to the decreasing numbers, other factors that contribute to their decline includes the increased use of pesticides, and habitat destruction.

Source: http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/butterfly-numbers-plunge-by-50-percent.html Goosette (talk) 00:40, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Per the source provided, All the information on this website is published in good faith and for general information purpose only. This website does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:46, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 May 2022

I would like to add the following to the "Declining Numbers" section:

In terms of climate change, there are both negative and positive effects on butterflies. It is very dependent on the species and the terrain or climate range they have access to. As stated in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the range of butterfly species has spread dramatically throughout Europe as a direct result of climate change. Correspondingly, some of the species in an attempt to find cooler conditions have gone locally extinct. Many more species, particularly in the south of Spain, are especially threatened. Other reasons for the declining numbers of the butterfly species population besides global warming include deforestation and habitat degradation, and the heavy use of insecticides and herbicides. According to National Geographic, grazing, mining, drilling, and farming combined constitute for more than half of all of the current deforestation. Particularly, habitat destruction is having a heavy impact on the butterfly species in North America. (Pskowski, 2019) Three main threats are contributing to the decrease of the butterfly population in North America: deforestation, increased use of herbicides, and decrease in milkweed availability. Two majorly used herbicides used in the agricultural industry, glyphosate and dicamba, are especially detrimental to the monarch butterfly population because they are toxic and harmful to milkweed. This is noteworthy because milkweed is the only food source of the monarch butterfly. According to the Royal Entomological Society, there has been a decline of milkweed species in the midwest by 58%. And from 1999 to 2010, there was an 81% decrease in monarch production in the midwest. These findings suggest that the loss of milkweed contributes majorly to the decline of monarch butterfly populations. However, even with the obvious risks insecticides pose to the butterfly populations, little has been done on how it will affect butterflies. The little research that has been done has found that neonicotinoids, a type of herbicide related to nicotine, kills monarch butterflies when inside of a laboratory environment. The effects of this herbicide on the predators of butterflies and other insects have also been found to be harmful. . All of this information is particularly alarming when taking into account how important butterflies are for supporting ecosystems. Butterflies and caterpillars are extremely important when it comes to plant and ecosystem survival. Caterpillars cycle nutrients and energy through ecosystems by chewing and digesting the leaves on plants. This makes important sources of sustenance available to the other living organisms. Butterflies are also an important primary food source for other predatory insect species. Because of their impact and presence on the ecosystems they’re within, the presence of butterflies are often used by scientists to indicate a healthy environment. An increase or decrease of a butterfly population can potentially give clues about the changing quality of their surrounding ecosystems. This evident importance of butterfly species brings the need for their conservation. Some ways that conservation has been tried to put in place is through nature preserves and protected areas, and the utilization of more sustainable agricultural practices. LilHorton (talk) 03:30, 18 May 2022 (UTC) LilHorton (talk) 03:30, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now:Please revise your request based on the Manual of Style. In particular, you do not need to mention where the information is from or declare the same reference repeatedly without a title. You should also use a more neutral tone. Aaron Liu (talk) 07:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

References