Papilionoidea

This article is about a group of butterflies. For the group of flowers that look like butterflies, see Papilionoideae.

Papilionoidea
Top left: Delias eucharis

Top right: Calinaga buddha
Below left: Myscelia cyaniris
Below right: Episcada apuleia

Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Infraorder: Heteroneura
Clade: Eulepidoptera
Clade: Ditrysia
Clade: Apoditrysia
Clade: Obtectomera
Superfamily: Papilionoidea
Latreille, 1802
Families
Brush-footed butterfly of subfamily Charaxinae

The superfamily Papilionoidea (from the genus Papilio, meaning "butterfly") contains all the butterflies except for the moth-like Hedyloidea.

The members of the Papilionoidea may be distinguished by the following combination of characters:

  • The body is smaller and less moth-like.
  • The wings are larger.
  • The antennae are straight and clubbed or hooked as in the skippers.
  • The caterpillars do not spin cocoons in which to pupate.
  • The pupae are angular rather than rounded.

Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest the traditionally circumscribed Papilionoidea are a paraphyletic group, and that skippers (family Hesperiidae) and Neotropical moth-like butterflies (family Hedylidae) are true butterflies that should be included within the Papilionoidea superfamily to reflect cladistic relationships.[1][2]

  1. ^ Heikkilä, M.; Kaila, L.; Mutanen, M.; Peña, C.; Wahlberg, N. (2012). "Cretaceous origin and repeated tertiary diversification of the redefined butterflies". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1731): 1093–1099. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1430. PMC 3267136. PMID 21920981.
  2. ^ Kawahara, A. Y.; Breinholt, J. W. (2014). "Phylogenomics provides strong evidence for relationships of butterflies and moths". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 281 (1788): 20140970. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0970. PMC 4083801. PMID 24966318.