| Butterfly species in Australia | 
| (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
|
| Butterfly species in Australia |
| (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
Looking at this table, and its precusor Foodplant Families of Sydney Butterflies, it seems that, while many butterfly species have polyphagus caterpillars that are able to feed on several plant families, curiously: a majority of the plant families have just a few species of butterfly with caterpillars that feed on that family alone, and do not feed on other plant families.
I suspect it is the coevolution of diversification of internal poisons in the plant families, and metabolic systems in the caterpillars. In the above table: 30% of the plant familes are the foodplants of a single species of caterpillar. Over the last 100 million years or so, we have had an escalating poison war of offence and defence between caterpillar and plant. So nature, with poison in sap and leaf, has evolved these specialised feeders.
 butterflies |  families |  moths |
(updated 7 December 2009, 15 November 2023)