Related topics: species · climate change

Counting butterflies reduces anxiety, study shows

New research by leading wildlife charity, Butterfly Conservation, in collaboration with the University of Derby, reveals that counting butterflies reduces anxiety by almost 10%.

Imageomics poised to enable new understanding of life

Imageomics, a new field of science, has made stunning progress in the past year and is on the verge of major discoveries about life on Earth, according to one of the founders of the discipline.

Butterflies could lose spots as climate warms

Female meadow brown butterflies have fewer spots if they develop in warmer weather—so climate change could make them less spotty, new research shows. The work is published in Ecology and Evolution.

page 1 from 40

Butterfly

A butterfly is an insect of the order Lepidoptera. Like all Lepidoptera, butterflies are notable for their unusual life cycle with a larval caterpillar stage, an inactive pupal stage, and a spectacular metamorphosis into a familiar and colourful winged adult form. Most species are day-flying so they regularly attract attention. The diverse patterns formed by their brightly coloured wings and their erratic yet graceful flight have made butterfly watching a hobby.

Butterflies comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). Butterflies exhibit polymorphism, mimicry and aposematism. Some migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have evolved symbiotic and parasitic relationships with social insects such as ants. Butterflies are important economically as agents of pollination. In addition, a few species are pests, because they can damage domestic crops and trees in their larval stage.

Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA