Etymology

The original "butter-fly"?[1] A male brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) in flight

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.[1][2]

Taxonomy and phylogeny

Further information: Prehistoric Lepidoptera

Prodryas persephone, a Late Eocene butterfly from the Florissant Fossil Beds, 1887 engraving

Lithopsyche antiqua, an Early Oligocene butterfly from the Bembridge Marls, Isle of Wight, 1889 engraving

The earliest Lepidoptera fossils are of a small moth, Archaeolepis mane, of Jurassic age, around

190 million years ago (mya).[3][4] Butterflies evolved from moths, so while the butterflies
are monophyletic (forming a single clade), the moths are not. The oldest butterflies are from
the Palaeocene MoClay or Fur Formation of Denmark, approximately 55 million years old. The
oldest American butterfly is the Late Eocene Prodryas persephone from the Florissant Fossil Beds,[5]
[6]
 approximately 34 million years old.[7]
Traditionally, butterflies have been divided into the superfamily Papilionoidea excluding the smaller
groups of the Hesperiidae (skippers) and the more moth-like Hedylidae of
America. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the traditional Papilionoidea is paraphyletic with
respect to the other two groups, so they should both be included within Papilionoidea, to form a
single butterfly group, thereby synonymous with the clade Rhopalocera.[8][9]