Lepidoptera
Fossil record

The fossil record for Lepidoptera is lacking in comparison to other winged species and tends not to be as common as some other insects in habitats that are most conducive to fossilization, such as lakes and ponds; their juvenile stage has only the head capsule as a hard part that might be preserved. Also, the scales covering their wings are hydrophobic and prevents their body from sinking when they end up on the water's surface. Lepidopteran bodies tend to come apart after death, and decompose quickly, so fossil remains are often extremely fragmentary. Of the fossils known, only an estimated 7% have been described. The location and abundance of the most common moth species are indicative that mass migrations of moths occurred over the Palaeogene North Sea, which is why there is a serious lack of moth fossils. Yet there are fossils, some preserved in amber and some in very fine sediments. Leaf mines are also seen in fossil leaves, although the interpretation of them is tricky.

Putative fossil stem group representatives of Amphiesmenoptera (the clade comprising Trichoptera and Lepidoptera) are known from the Triassic. The earliest known lepidopteran fossils are fossilized scales from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. They were found as rare palynological elements in the sediments of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary from the cored Schandelah-1 well, drilled near Braunschweig in northern Germany. This pushes back the fossil record and origin of glossatan lepidopterans by about 70 million years, supporting molecular estimates of a Norian (ca 212 million years) divergence of glossatan and non-glossatan lepidopterans. The findings were reported in 2018 in the journal Science Advances. The authors of the study proposed that lepidopterans evolved a proboscis as an adaptation to drink from droplets and thin films of water for maintaining their fluid balance in the hot and arid climate of the Triassic.

The earliest named lepidopteran taxon is Archaeolepis mane, a primitive moth-like species from the Early Jurassic, dated back to around 190 million years ago, and known only from three wings found in the Charmouth Mudstone of Dorset, UK. The wings show scales with parallel grooves under a scanning electron microscope and a characteristic wing venation pattern shared with Trichoptera (caddisflies). Only two more sets of Jurassic lepidopteran fossils have been found, as well as 13 sets from the Cretaceous, which all belong to primitive moth-like families.

Many more fossils are found from the Tertiary, and particularly the Eocene Baltic amber. The oldest genuine butterflies of the superfamily Papilionoidea have been found in the Paleocene MoClay or Fur Formation of Denmark. The best preserved fossil lepidopteran is the Eocene Prodryas persephone from the Florissant Fossil Beds.
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