4-464: Top right: Calinaga buddha Below left: Myscelia cyaniris Below right: Episcada apuleia The superfamily Papilionoidea (from the genus Papilio , meaning "butterfly") contains all the butterflies except for the moth-like Hedyloidea . The members of the Papilionoidea may be distinguished by the following combination of characters: Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest
8-929: A strongly supported clade with the Charaxinae as sister group. The fossil genus Lithopsyche is apparently a Papilionoidea incertae sedis , which has long been mistaken for a geometer moth of the Boarmiini . It is variously placed in the Lycaenidae or Riodinidae. A similar fossil, Lithodryas , is more firmly assigned to the Lycaenidae, but might belong to the Nymphalidae. Riodinella , yet another prehistoric genus, also seems to belong here, but its relationships are quite obscure, indeed. However, these fossils – all found in Eocene deposits dating roughly between 50 and 25 million years ago – suggest
12-519: The radiation of the Papilionoidea into the present-day families took place during that epoch. Prodryas , from the end of the Eocene, can be quite robustly assigned to the Nymphalidae, and is quite likely a member of the Nymphalini . Oligocene fossils of Papilionoidea are usually assignable to an extant family without problems. Taken together, these fossils place the origin of the Papilionoidea in
16-534: The traditionally circumscribed Papilionoidea are a paraphyletic group, and that skippers (family Hesperiidae ) and Neotropical moth-like butterflies (family Hedylidae ) are true butterflies that should be included within the Papilionoidea superfamily to reflect cladistic relationships. The six well-supported families of Papilionoidea are: Of the subfamilies of Nymphalidae, only the Morphinae and Satyrinae are possibly paraphyletic, but these two subfamilies form
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