Insect Evolution Questionaire

Quick lesson on insect evolution, how can you tell the difference between moths and butterflies? One fly's at night and the other during the day, No. there are moths that fly during the day. It’s not as easy as you think, in fact you cannot tell them apart biologically. Only physically can you tell them apart and that is by looking at the antennae. Butterflies have “Club” like antennae and moths have feather like antennae. This is the definition but it is a little bit more subtle than that. Some butterflies have antennae that don’t really have the club but a slight enlargement at the tip. But moths are pretty easy as the featheryness of the antennae is pretty easy to identify. Most moths are you know, big and fat with huge red staring eyes and large teeth with which to bite your neck at night and large talons to scratch your eyes out with, well that is what most women think about moths. It is only because I have seen many butterflies here that looked slightly different and when I tried to identify them, they are in fact moths and as beautifully coloured as butterflies. This is when the difficulty of trying to see the differences has been obvious to me. I have also learned that some of these butterflies are very difficult to keep as a specimen as there abdomens contain an oily substance that leaks out and kills the refractive properties of the scales on the wings. So the collectors have to remove the abdomens. Another interesting thing ( If you can call it that ) is that insects evolved from ( not intelligently designed ) segmented worms. This can be seen by the fact the bodies of insects are segmented still and the head is in fact 3 segments fused together. Wonderful isn’t it.