![]() ![]() Many butterflies are attacked by parasites or parasitoids, including wasps, protozoans, flies, and other invertebrates, or are preyed upon by other organisms. Some, like the monarch and the painted lady, migrate over long distances. Butterflies are often polymorphic, and many species make use of camouflage, mimicry and aposematism to evade their predators. 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 entire life cycle. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers (formerly the superfamily Hesperioidea), and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies (formerly the superfamily Hedyloidea). Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. ![]() ![]() Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. ![]()
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