ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Phylogenomics reveals the evolutionary timing and pattern of butterflies and moths.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 188 papers.
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188 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Dayhoff Exchange Score: A New Metric to Quantify Entropic Site Saturation in Amino Acid Data Sets Prior to Phylogenetic Analysis.Systematic biology · 2026Article
- The Scent of Deception: Does the Hornet Clearwing Sesia apiformis Chemically Mimic Vespa crabro?Journal of chemical ecology · 2026Article
- Reconstruction of an extinct soundscape reveals ultrasonic communication in the Jurassic.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Diversity of swimming behavior in larval Lepidoptera.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2026Article
- Processionary Moth Exposure in Europe: Toxic-Irritant and Immunoglobulin E-Mediated Endotypes, Diagnosis and Management.Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology · 2026Review
- Soaring Systematics: An Evaluation of Biogeography and Flight Behavior in Dragonflies and Damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) Using Phylogenomics.Systematic biology · 2026Article
- Plasticity-first evolution via CYP405 loss shaped chemical defenses in butterflies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Characterization of the Complete Mitochondrial Genome ofCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Structural genomics sheds light on protein functions and remote homologs across the insect tree of life.Cell research · 2026Article
- Near chromosome-level genome assembly of Neomusotima conspurcatalis gives insights into the evolution of moth genome architecture and fern-insect interactions.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- LepEU: A Consortium to Study the Population Genomics of Butterflies and Moths Across Europe.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Are Full-Night Samplings Necessary? Unraveling the Hourly Structure and Climatic Responses of Three Moth Groups in a Brazilian Pampa Grassland.Neotropical entomology · 2026Article
- Contrasting phenological shifts in diurnal and nocturnal Lepidoptera under climate change.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Genetic parallelism underpins convergent mimicry coloration in Lepidoptera across 120 million years of evolution.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Convergent evolution of hexenal isomerases in Lepidoptera and plants.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Molecular mechanisms of sex determination in Lepidoptera: current status and perspectives.Insect science · 2026Review
- The dynamic evolution of panarthropod germ cell specification mechanisms.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Evolution of Highly Repetitive Silk Genes in the Luna Moth, Actias luna.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Cellular innovations and diversity in the lepidopteran compound eye.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- Neuroethology on the move with butterflies and moths.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
128 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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20 authors.
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Abstract
Butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) are one of the major superradiations of insects, comprising nearly 160,000 described extant species. As herbivores, pollinators, and prey, Lepidoptera play a fundamental role in almost every terrestrial ecosystem. Lepidoptera are also indicators of environmental change and serve as models for research on mimicry and genetics. They have been central to the development of coevolutionary hypotheses, such as butterflies with flowering plants and moths' evolutionary arms race with echolocating bats. However, these hypotheses have not been rigorously tested, because a robust lepidopteran phylogeny and timing of evolutionary novelties are lacking. To address these issues, we inferred a comprehensive phylogeny of Lepidoptera, using the largest dataset assembled for the order (2,098 orthologous protein-coding genes from transcriptomes of 186 species, representing nearly all superfamilies), and dated it with carefully evaluated synapomorphy-based fossils. The oldest members of the Lepidoptera crown group appeared in the Late Carboniferous (∼300 Ma) and fed on nonvascular land plants. Lepidoptera evolved the tube-like proboscis in the Middle Triassic (∼241 Ma), which allowed them to acquire nectar from flowering plants. This morphological innovation, along with other traits, likely promoted the extraordinary diversification of superfamily-level lepidopteran crown groups. The ancestor of butterflies was likely nocturnal, and our results indicate that butterflies became day-flying in the Late Cretaceous (∼98 Ma). Moth hearing organs arose multiple times before the evolutionary arms race between moths and bats, perhaps initially detecting a wide range of sound frequencies before being co-opted to specifically detect bat sonar. Our study provides an essential framework for future comparative studies on butterfly and moth evolution.
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