Butterfly Effect

Artistic depictions of butterflies have been used in many cultures including Egyptian hieroglyphs 3500 years ago. In the ancient Meso-american city of Teotihuacan, the brilliantly colored image of the butterfly was carved into many temples, buildings, jewelry, and emblazoned on incense burners in particular. The butterfly was sometimes depicted with the maw of a jaguar. The close association of butterflies to fire and warfare persisted through to the Aztec civilization and evidence of similar jaguar-butterfly images has been found among the Zapotec, and Mayan civilizations.



Butterfly is seen in Japan as the personification of a person's soul. One popular Japanese belief is that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. In Chinese culture two butterflies flying together are a symbol of love. In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time.

Some, like the Monarch, will migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have evolved symbiotic and parasitic relationships with social insects such as ants. Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; however, some species are agents of pollination of some plants, and caterpillars of a few butterflies (e.g., Harvesters) eat harmful insects. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary art



It is a popular belief that when a butterfly lands on you it means good luck. Today, butterflies are widely used in various objects of art and jewelry: mounted in frame, embedded in resin, displayed in bottles, laminated in paper, and used in some mixed media artworks and furnishings

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect. The butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts, egg, larva, pupa and adult. It is a popular belief that butterflies have very short life spans. However, butterflies in their adult stage can live from a week to nearly a year depending on the species. Many species have long larval life stages while others can remain dormant in their pupal or egg stages and thereby survive winters.



According to Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion, some of the Naga tribes of Manipur in India trace their ancestry from a butterfly.

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