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Butterfly
Butterflies are part of the class of insects in the order Lepidoptera, along with the moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, along with two smaller groups, the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). Butterfly fossils date to the Palaeocene, about 56 million years ago.
Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out and, after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their whole life cycle.
Butterflies are often polymorphic, and many species make use of camouflage, mimicry and aposematism to evade their predators. Some, like the monarch and the painted lady, migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have parasitoidal relationships with organisms including protozoans, flies, ants, and other invertebrates, and are predated by vertebrates. Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; other species are agents of pollination of some plants, and caterpillars of a few butterflies (e.g., harvesters) eat harmful insects. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
==Etymology==
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' derives the word straightforwardly from Old English ''butorflēoge'', butter-fly; similar names in Old Dutch and Old High German show that the name is ancient. A possible source of the name is the bright yellow male of the brimstone ''Gonepteryx rhamni''; another is that butterflies were on the wing in meadows during the spring and summer butter season while the grass was growing.〔Donald A. Ringe, ''A Linguistic History of English: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic'' (Oxford: Oxford, 2003), 232.〕
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