We discussed in an early post about the superfamilies and families of butterflies. As we know there are two superfamilies of butterflies namely, Hedyloidea and Papilionoidea.
Hedyloidea are commonly called as moth-butterflies as they exhibit characters that are intermittent with true butterflies and moths. Hedylidae is the representing family of the Hedyloidea and it comprises of ~35 valid species that are all in the genus Macrosoma and all of them are distributed in Americas (or more correctly in Neotropics).
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Macrosoma sp (Hedylidae) photo by-Pavel Kirillov
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Papilionoidea is the superfamily of true butterflies and it consists of 6 extant families.
- Papilionidae - swallowtails, apollos and birdwings
- Pieridae - yellows and whites
- Nymphalidae - brush footed butterflies
- Lycaenidae - blues
- Riodinidae - metalmark butterflies
- Hespiriidae - skippers
In Sri Lanka there are butterflies representing all 6 families.
Papilionoidea is characterized by,
- smaller bodies compared to the wing size
- straight antennae are clubbed or hooked at the end
- larvae don't spin cocoons in order to pupate
- pupae are more diverse in shapes than being oval or round
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Adult Tailed Jay butterfly (Graphiun Agamemnon) showing wing size, body size and the clubbed antennae.
photo by myself
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Pupa of the same species showing no spinned cocoon and the odd shape
photo by myself
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