page_title: Butterfly
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Butterfly / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: Common brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) male in flight
context_page_description: Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers, and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, 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 entire life cycle.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: The original "butter-fly"?[1] A male brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) in flight
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5472", "Image ImageLength": "3648", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 70D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2014:07:24 17:07:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1370", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4493", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/6400", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:07:22 14:10:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:07:22 14:10:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "101/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "330", "EXIF SubSecTime": "13", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2603", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1735", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1224", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5472000/899", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3648000/599", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "073024014483", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[100, 400, 0, 0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "0000000000"}