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LiveScience
LiveScience
Soumya Sagar

All butterflies evolved from ancient moths in North America 100 million years ago

North America
Close up of a butterfly with blue wings and a black body

Scientists have painstakingly constructed the world's biggest butterfly tree of life and discovered that the first butterflies evolved 100 million years ago in what is now Central and North America,

At this time, the supercontinent Pangaea was in the process of breaking apart, and North America was split in two by a seaway separating the east and west. Butterflies originated in the western side of this continental chunk. 

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