Evolution of butterflies from 100 million years ago to modern times: Where did the first species appear and where did they spread?

Photo: Peksels

It all started 100 million years ago in Central and North America, but in order to "conquer" the whole world, the pimples needed several tens of millions of years, writes the Serbian "National Geographic".  

About 200 million years ago there was Pangea, a supercontinent dominated by plants of the cycad family and coniferous forests. However, at some point Pangea began to break up, and that process was slow and lasted millions of years. North America is divided into two parts, and on its western side herbivorous insects appear, from which the first butterflies will later be formed, about 101,4 million years ago.

 

Photo: Pexels/ jennifer-murray

They then spread to the parts that are known today as South America, Antarctica, a land mass with a warm climate, connected to today's Australia and reached the extreme limits of the then world on one side. On the other hand, their journey did not stop because they crossed the Bering land bridge and spread towards the present-day territories of Russia about 70-60 million years ago.

 

From there, they moved into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, but what baffles scientists who have reconstructed this process is that, for some unknown reason, they stayed there for another 20 to 15 million years before moving on to Europe. And finally, 30 million years ago, they settled there too, but according to researchers who worked on a study published in the journal "Nature Ecology & Evolution", this very fact is the reason why there are incomparably fewer species of butterflies here than in other parts of the world.

 

Photo: Pexels/ray-bilcliff

A team of scientists from the Florida Museum of Natural History reconstructed the "tree" of the butterfly based on genes collected from 2.300 species from 90 different countries around the world. In addition, they compared their data with 11 rare fossils of these ancient insects for which they had precise dates of existence.

Although they claim that this is one of the most complex studies they have participated in, it is safe to say that they appeared around 101,4 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. And while they fed on plants from the legume family, which had no defense mechanisms against insects, they survived on them for the next few tens of millions of years, until they adapted to eating other types of plants.

Dear reader,

Our access to web content is free, because we believe in equality in information, regardless of whether someone can pay or not. Therefore, in order to continue our work, we ask for the support of our community of readers by financially supporting the Free Press. Become a member of Sloboden Pechat to help the facilities that will enable us to deliver long-term and quality information and TOGETHER let's ensure a free and independent voice that will ALWAYS BE ON THE PEOPLE'S SIDE.

SUPPORT A FREE PRESS.
WITH AN INITIAL AMOUNT OF 60 DENARS

Video of the day