Butterflies are poster children among insects. In contrast, moths are routinely vilified. Yet moths and butterflies are essentially the same
All are scale-winged creatures in the order Lepidoptera, more closely related to one another than falcons are to hawks. Evolutionarily, the six butterfly families nestle within 120-ish moth families.
In the 18th century, they were generally all known as ‘flies’. The word ‘butterfly’ supposedly came about because one springflying species (the Brimstone) was referred to as the “buttercoloured fly.”
The six families that became known as the butterflies all have a couple of major characteristics in common: they fly exclusively (or nearly so) by day, and have bulbous tips to their antennae (which only a few moths do).
However, supposedly consistent differences disintegrate under cross-examination. In fact, we have four times more day-flying moth species than butterflies, for example.
Linguistically, English is an outlier in differentiating between moths and butterflies. French, German and Dutch refer to butterflies and night-butterflies.
If you’d like to learn more about butterflies, in our July issue, our regular feature, ‘Know A Thing Or Two’ looks at butterflies. Buy this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe
