Butterflies originated in North America after splitting from moths, new study suggests

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/ [login to see] /butterflies-originated-in-north-america-after-splitting-from-moths-new-study-sug
Akito Kawahara remembers being eight years old when he went on a special tour of the insect collection at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He marveled at the vast array of pinned bugs before stopping in front of a large picture of the butterfly family tree.

A number of spots on that tree, he saw, were curiously blank.

"Just looking at it, realizing that scientists at these museums still don't know these basic things — I'll never forget that day," Kawahara says.

That moment sparked a lifelong passion in Kawahara to fill in those blanks and determine where these charismatic insects originated. Now, he's gotten a little closer to an answer. His latest research shows that butterflies probably first flapped their wings in present-day western North America or Central America.

"We were surprised," says Kawahara, now the curator of butterflies and moths at the University of Florida. Before this, "people had thought that butterflies originated somewhere in Asia."