Facts
Moths and butterflies make up the order Lepidoptera and are
among the most easily identifiable insects.
-Defined as a monophyletic lineage by
a suite of more than twenty derived characters, most obvious of
which are
scales on the
wings and the proboscis.
In all but the most primitive forms, feeding in adults is accomplished by pumping liquid via tubular proboscis. The proboscis will usually elongate and is found coiled up underneath the head.
Lepidoptera pass through egg, larval and pupa stages while egg
and mating disposition are carried out by the adult forms.
*More on the life cycle of
Lepidoptera can be found in the Life
Cycle section of this website
The Lepidoptera is one of the two or three largest orders of
insects with an estimated 160,000 named species.
-One in particular for which this
webpage was developed was Hemaris thysbe
which belongs to the order,
Sphingidae.
Lepidoptera represent the single most diverse lineage of
organisms to have evolved primarily dependent on angiosperm plants.
*All from (Powell 2003)