Butterflies and Moths have four wings

Butterflies and Moths, like most insects, have 4 wings – a pair of forewings and a pair of hindwings. Some insect families have no wings and one group, the Two-winged Flies (Diptera), have converted their hindwings into balancing organs or ‘halteres’. Daddylonglegs, House Flies, Hoverflies and Mosquitoes are in this group.

Butterflies and Moths use their wings for several purposes – to fly to spread out from the area where they hatched, to display to each other in courtship, to warm up in cold but sunny weather, and to cool down on hot days. These wings are generally covered in scales.

The Purple Emperor on the left is soaking up the sunshine, basking with its wings fully open. Dark winged butterflies like the Speckled Wood on the right are able to absorb the sun's heat more quickly than others - so you see them flying on days when it is too cool for other species to move.

The males of many butterfly species have very obvious scent scales on their wings which produce very powerful chemicals (called ‘pheromones’) to attract the females before courtship and mating. Go to the section on Courtship, Display and Mating to see images of male and female butterflies, showing the male scent scales.

Some butterfly and moth species have large eyes and bright colours on their wings to defend themselves from birds and other predators.

The wings of the Eyed Hawk-moth have large ‘eyes’ on them. When the moth is roosting in the day, it is well camouflaged, but if it is threatened by a bird or other predator, it can flash these ‘eyes’ to deceive the predator into thinking the moth is really much too large to eat, so that it can try to escape.

If a moth does get caught in a spider's web, the loose scales may become stuck on the web and allow the moth to wriggle free - with rather fewer scales, but at least it is alive.

See how this Angle Shades moth is losing its scales on the threads of the web - it eventually flew away leaving its scales behind.

In a few species of moths, the females have no wings and have to crawl up trees to lay their eggs. The Winter Moth, a pest in orchards, is one of these, the Vapourer Moth (left) is another. On the right is a female Mottled Umber moth.

Many butterfly species have very bright upper surfaces to their wings, but the undersides are highly camouflaged. This is especially important for species that hibernate like the Peacock, the Small Tortoiseshell and the Comma (shown here).