the word explorer

Our butterfly garden attracts many different lepidopterans.

We planted a small butterfly garden many years ago and it is starting to bloom again. The garden attracts many beautiful butterflies such as Monarchs, Swallowtails, Viceroys, and Fritillaries. Butterflies and moths belong to a large group of insects called Lepidoptera.  Lepidoptera comes from the Greek roots lepid, meaning scale and pter, meaning wing. The word literally means “scaly wing”, and refers to the brightly colored, overlapping scales that make up the wings (and bodies) of these insects.