EDUCATION That’s not a moth. Formosan Swift (Borbo cinnara) of the Hesperiidae family resting on a leaf in typical skipper fashion showing the hooked As someone tasked to lead walks for Nature Society (Singapore), antennae. Simon Chan has been asked this question many times. Let’s go back to the basics with him and get a few things straight. Text by Simon Chan Photos by Tea Yi Kai, Gan Cheong Weei & Simon Chan

y immediate reply to the question would always be another question: “What appears to be a but- terfly?” Invariably, you hear a range of answersM gathered from science lessons in school. fly in the day and close their usually colourful wings when at rest. These are just generalizations, however. Exceptions abound in the natural world. To answer this question concerning butterflies and moths to everyone’s satisfaction, one must revise some basics of entomology. There is a large order of classified under . Coined How to tell a by Linnaeus in 1735, this term, a com- A male Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete) of the Pieridae family resting for the night. butterfly from a moth?

Five Bar Swordtail (Pathysa antiphates) of the immensely large Papilionidae family Macrosoma heliconaria, a strange Neotropical moth-looking butterfly. Caterpillars however resemble their counterparts and puddling in the sand. pupae are dead ringers for Pieridae ones.

20 Nature Watch Jul - Sep 2013 Jul - Sep 2013 Nature Watch 21 Butterflies or Moths? generalizations we learnt from our sci- ence lessons. Hesperioidea is made up of just LEPIDOPTERA one family, Hesperiidae. That should bination of two ancient Greek words, be easy, but no, here’s where it can get Lepido (scale) and Ptera (wing), is used tricky. Individuals of this group are to describe insects that have scales on RHOPALOCERA HETEROCERA considered butterflies although their their wings. Such insects encompass (butterflies) (moths) antenna tips are hooked backwards (not butterflies (sub-order Rhopalocera) straight)! Popularly called skippers for and moths (sub-order Heterocera). their quick, darting flights, such moth- Rhopalocera can be broken down PAPILIONOIDEA HESPERIOIDEA HEDYLOIDEA like individuals are stockier of body further to superfamilies Papilionoidea PAPILIONIDAE HESPERIIDAE HEDYLIDAE with very strong wing muscles in their (‘true’ butterflies), Hesperioidea (skip- PIERIDAE thorax and they have larger eyes vis-à- pers) and Hedyloidea (American ‘moth- NYMPHALIDAE vis the other two superfamilies. When butterflies’). See box for a graphical RIODINIDAE resting, skippers tend to place their LYCAENIDAE Skipper butterfly from the Hesperiidae family with wings totally flat! This is a male representation of the various groups. Hieroglyphic Flat (Odina hieroglyphica) feeding on bird droppings. forewings pointed upwards and their The three superfamilies are placed hindwings, flat. Yet, sometimes, all their together as butterflies because they share wings are spread out entirely flat, as many characteristics in the egg, larval moths do. So, don’t be fooled. and pupal stages of their life-cycles. Hedyloidea has, similarly, a singu- In the superfamily Papilionoidea, lar Hedylidae family. Simple? These are species have straight antennae that are strange ‘moth-butterflies’ specifically of either knobbed or clubbed at the end the Neotropics. While adults look like (rather like the head of a match-stick). moths from the Geometridae family in They also have colourful wings of sizes that their antennae are rather filiform or larger than their bodies, which as a bipectinate (not knobbed or clubbed), rule, are slimmer compared to those of caterpillars resemble individuals of the moths. Another difference is that moths Nymphalidae family and their pupae, tend to be a lot hairier. Many species in a dead ringer for counterparts of the this group display the characteristics of Able to be as colourful and prominent as butterflies - Luna Moth (Actias maenas) and Atlas Pieridae family. Talk about misleading a ‘true’ butterfly so often reflecting the Moth (Attacus atlas). us further! In summary, we can differenti- ate a butterfly from a moth by looking closely at its antennae. If the tip at the We can differentiate a butterfly end of the straight antennae is knobbed, from a moth by looking closely at clubbed or even hooked backwards, it its antennae. If the tip at the end of Malay Lacewing ( hypsea) of the Nymphalidae family feeding on purple is probably a butterfly. Anything else is the straight antennae is knobbed, Snakeweed Flowers. a moth of varied antennae – whether comb-like, feathery or filamentous – clubbed or even hooked backwards, since we do not have American ‘moth- it is probably a butterfly. butterflies’ to confuse us.

References • http://www.stri.si.edu/sites/publications/PDFs/ Aiello_Scoble%20&%20Aiello%20.pdf • http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/ wiki100k/docs/Butterfly.html • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_ (biology)#Insects

Simon Chan served as Chair of the Butterfly Interest Group (NSS) from 2001 to 2010. He continues to be active in leading butterfly walks and other related activities. He has also re-discovered a long forgotten passion - drawing! We hope that Red Edge (Semanga superba) his illustration of the Macrosoma butterfly of the Lycaenidae family here is the first of more beauties to come. resting on a leaf after feeding. Lesser Harlequin (Laxita thuisto) of the Riodinidae family possibly patrolling for females.

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