Lepidopteran

Jacob Hübner described many genera, and the Lepidopteran genera were catalogued by Ferdinand Ochsenheimer and Georg Friedrich Treitschke in a series of volumes on the Lepidopteran fauna of Europe published between 1807 and 1835.

Like the Monarch, which travels from Canada to Mexico annually, the Painted Lady turns out to be part of the lepidopteran elite, with migration patterns similar to those of birds.

Braconid and other parasitic wasps lay their eggs in lepidopteran eggs or larvae and the wasps' parasitoid larvae devour their hosts, usually pupating inside or outside the desiccated husk.

In many regions, the main pests in commercial cotton are lepidopteran larvae, which are killed by the Bt protein in the transgenic cotton they eat.

Lepidopteran eggs are also preyed upon.

Lepidopteran larvae can be differentiated by: * the numbers of pairs of pro-legs; sawfly larvae have 6 while caterpillars have up to 5 pairs.

Some lepidopteran species blend with their surroundings, making them difficult to spot by predators.

The lepidopteran pupa, known as a chrysalis in the case of butterflies, has functional mandibles with appendages fused or glued to the body in most species, while the pupal mandibles are not functional in others.

There are two sets of mechanosensory organs located at the base of the lepidopteran antenna, Böhm's bristles and the Johnston organ.

This eliminates the need to use large amounts of broad-spectrum insecticides to kill lepidopteran pests (some of which have developed pyrethroid resistance).