the word butterfly - reaction from Netherlands

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Wed May 6 11:46:10 EDT 1998


Bernard Landry wrote:
> 
> Bonjour et merci à ceux qui ont répondu à mon message concernant les
> noms vernaculaires français pour "papillons de jour" et "papillons de
> nuit".
> 
> Les termes Rhopalocera et Heterocera (ou leur équivalent français) sont
> des synonymes de "papillons de jour" et "papillons de nuit", mais
> j'avoue les utiliser rarement, car moins de gens savent ce qu'ils
> veulent dire exactement.
> 
> J'arrive à la conclusion qu'il faut éviter les termes comme noctuelles,
> phalènes, teignes (ou mites) pour parler des Heterocera, car ces termes
> font respectivement référence aux Noctuidae, Geometridae, et Tineidae.
> 
> Amitiés / Vriendelijke groet  / kind regards
> 
> Bernard

I wondered about that myself. If you call moths night-butterflies, then 
the vast group of day-flying moths is sort of orphaned, isn't it? 
As for your Rhopalocera and so forth,  I never heard of them myself, 
except on this list, and I don't think they're terms in common use here.
As used in my part of the States, leps (used by lovers only) refers to 
all the lepidoptera; for the common man, butterflies refers to showy 
leps, and moths are the plain-looking guys. Oddly, the Luna moth is 
usually recognized as a moth. And of course the skippers confuse 
everybody, but nobody notices them except people who care, anyway. 
I know butterfly collectors who only see the big showy bugs, but deeply 
love those moths.  
We should perhaps coin  a term for those butterfliers who graduate to a 
love of nature, and fall in love with all the little guys. Well, I 
suppose naturalist gets you there in this language. 
Anne Kilmer
South Florida




More information about the Leps-l mailing list