The World’s Most Unusual Butterflies

With autumn on the way, now is a good time to invest in a scarf ahead of colder weather, with a wide range of choices available.

If you fancy buying a butterfly print scarf in the UK, you can enjoy one of the most attractive of all our designs, especially if these creatures fascinate you. Should that be the case, you will be in good company.

After a sunny summer in which people will have had lots of opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors, many will have had ample opportunity to become familiar with the various species of butterfly in Britain, with common examples including the Peacock, Red Admiral, Brimstone and Holly Blue.

However, those with a particularly deep interest in butterflies might be fascinated to learn about some of the candidates for the most unique butterfly in the world.

For example, there is the Blue Morpho Butterfly, which is one of the biggest in the world with a wingspan of up to 20 cm, or the Western Pygmy Blue, which is one of the very smallest.

Talking of blue, almost all butterflies with blue colours owe this not to pigment but the microscopic structures of their wings, which scatter light waves to make them look blue; the same effect, known as Rayleigh Scattering, that makes the sky blue.

However, there is one exception - the blue markings on the Olivewing Butterfly from Latin America are unique in the whole animal kingdom, let alone among butterflies, in being produced by pigment.

That is not the only kind of exceptional markings seen in the butterfly world. There is Cramer’s 88 Butterfly, which has black and white ringed patterns that appear to spell out the numbers 88 or 89. Alongside all these different coloured markings is the extraordinary Glasswing Butterfly, whose transparent wings appear like ornate framed windows.

Quite simply, the butterfly kingdom offers an extraordinary array of sizes, colours and unique quirks. Small wonder they make a great theme for a scarf or any other garment.