This scientist Paul Brakefield is a world authority of spots. His lab is filled with most widely questions asked,The beauty of the butterfly to behavioral ecologists is that its wing spots, bands, and other splotches play dramatic roles in mating, outwitting predators, and other matters critical to the insect's evolution. . Now, they're beginning to decipher it. Much as computer screens form images, butterfly wings use tiny, single-color flecks that add up to the big pattern. Each minuscule, colored scale comes from a single cell, which dies after it's made its pixel. The colors come from mixtures of pigments—flavonoids, melanins, and pterins—that are widespread among organisms.I've never heard of the many different types of butterflies and never knew there were different species and kinds of butterflies.Most of the world's 17,000 butterfly species sport distinctive wings, some as patterned as embroidery samplers, some so iridescent that that a butterfly's bright flash at ground level has caught the eye of passengers in small airplanes overhead.

Butterflies are cool animals and they should be studied a WHOLE lot more!!!! What do you think about the idea of studying butterflies???

Picture from http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/butterfly_gets_spots.html