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Are butterflies and moths the same?

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While the butterflies form a monophyletic group, the moths, which comprise the rest of the Lepidoptera, do not. Many attempts have been made to group the superfamilies of the Lepidoptera into natural groups, most of which fail because one of the two groups is not monophyletic: Microlepidoptera and Macrolepidoptera, Heterocera and Rhopalocera, Jugatae and Frenatae, Monotrysia and Ditrysia. read more

There are certainly differences, but if you think of other insect orders it doesn’t seem so strange. There are more differences to the eye, at least, between wasps and ants, which are both in Hymenoptera, than there are between the two groups of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). read more

Butterflies and Moths of the World - From the Natural History Museum, London “There are currently an estimated 112,000 to 165,000 described species of butterflies and moths (Scoble, 1999) in 24,009 available or objective replacement genus-group names within 131 families. read more

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