Moths and butterflies are similar insects, and are grouped together in the order Lepidoptera (from the Greek words meaning scaly-winged). The two kinds can be told apart as follows: Most moths fly at dusk or at night, but butterflies are day fliers. Butterflies have knobbed, tipped antennae; moths have unknobbed, hairy or feathery ones. Another difference is that a moth rests with wings either flat or folded, but a butterfly holds its wings upward.
Moths hatch from small, shell-covered eggs; and the commonly bristle-covered caterpillar larvae eat hungrily for days, undergoing molting several times before they spin their fibrous or silken cocoons and become resting pupae inside. (Butterflies do not make cocoons.) The adult moths form inside and, when mature, bite their way outward, tearing a hole in the cocoon. This explains why cultivated silkworm pupae must be killed inside the cocoons. A moth's life history is the complete metamorphosis typical of many other insects.
