Scientific name for social butterfly
Chris J. Durden
drdn at mail.utexas.edu
Thu Jan 13 02:42:15 EST 2000
At 01:36 13/01/00 -0500, you wrote:
>The other day I heard someone called a "social butterfly" for the first
>time, and my immediate thought was "lepidopterus socialis" -- but that
>can't be right, can it? I mean, lepidoptera is an order, not a genus.
>Can anyone help me out here?
>
>TIA,
>Louis
>
>P.S. There aren't _really_ any social butterflies, are there?
>
>
Oh, yes there are - try *Eucheira socialis* - THE MADRONE BUTTERFLY that
lives with its young in tents.
For a conversational term *Papilio socialis* would be appropriate should we
choose to sink genera and follow Linne with all the butterflies in one
genus under the senior name.
.......Chris Durden
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