Common Sailor Butterfly – Neptis hylas

Captive live butterfly photographed at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago.

The butterfly pictured here is a captive. Live butterfly exhibits have become very popular in the United States, for obvious reasons. Children love butterflies, adults love butterflies and museums find them easy to raise and maintain – everybody wins.

Family Nymphalidae – Brushfoots or brush-footed butterflies encompass approximately 3,000 species worldwide, of which 160 or so live in or visit North America. This is a very diverse family of butterflies, and they occur everywhere except the polar ice caps. Their unifying characteristic is the reduced forelegs of both males and females. The habit of holding the forelegs close to the body is shared with many other insects, including bumblebees, flies, bugs and beetles.

Butterfly Main | Skippers | Butterfly Index