Is A Butterfly An Insect?

Butterflies belong to the order of Lepidoptera, a subcategory of the class Insecta. Their Scientific classification follows:
Kingdom: Animalia
Division: Rhopalocera
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera means wings with scales on them. The wings of butterflies are often covered by colorful mosaics or minute scales. Butterflies are categorized and arranged by the characteristic pattern and color the species take due to the mosaics of scales on their wings.
Butterflies are famous for their life cycle and metamorphosis from an egg followed by their ugly state as a gluttonous caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly after a pupic stage. There are approximately 170,000 species of moths and butterflies. Butterflies use their coiled tongues or proboscis to eat nectar from flowers or minerals from the forest floor. Most butterflies are not nocturnal.

Butterflies are further classified into their five families of Pieridae, Papilionidae, Lycaenidae, Riodinidae and Nymphalidae. Butterflies were originally named buttorfleoge as they were believed to steal milk and their modern name is derived from that old English word.