[TN-Butterflies] Re: butterflies of america website
- From: Andrew Brower <abrower@xxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-butterflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:25:06 -0600
Hi folks,
In regards to Steve's comment about the age of skippers:
The skippers (Hesperoidea) are the sister taxon of the Papilionoidea
("true" butterflies). I don't think that the order in which they
appear in the Butterflies of America classification reflects a
statement about their ancient or recent origin. The sister
relationship implies that both groups are the same age.
If the subscribers of this list are interested in phylogenetic
hypotheses, pretty much everything that is known about butterfly
relationships (as well as their reationships to the moths) is
graphically displayed in the Tree of Life web pages, www.tolweb.org/
papilionoidea (and ... /hesperioidea).
cheers,
Andy Brower
I was interested to see that the skippers remain at the end of this
list, indicating recent evolutionary emergence, rather than being
shifted to the beginning as in some other recent butterfly lists,
indicating ancient evolutionary emergence.
I have not seen the first butterfly in Tennessee for 2009 yet, but
am hopeful of a few before the end of February.
Good butterflying, Steve
Link to Butterflies of America website:
http://butterfliesofamerica.com/intro.htm
Other related posts:
