External Morphology
Lepidoptera are morphologically distinguished from other orders principally by the presence of scales on the external parts of the body and appendages, especially the wings. Butterflies and moths vary in size from microlepidoptera only a few millimeters long, to conspicuous animals with a wingspan of many inches, such as the Monarch butterfly and Atlas moth. Lepidopterans undergo a four-stage life cycle: egg; larva or caterpillar; pupa or chrysalis; and imago (plural: imagines) / adult and show many variations of the basic body structure, which have evolved to gain advantages in lifestyle and distribution.
Read more about this topic: Lepidoptera
Famous quotes containing the words external and/or morphology:
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language.... To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)