Time period over which birds and butterflies have evolved

Range birds ~160: butterflies >140 million years ago
Organism Metazoa animals
Reference Frentiu FD, Briscoe AD. A butterfly eye's view of birds. Bioessays. 2008 Nov30(11-12):1151-62. doi: 10.1002/bies.20828 p.1159 left column bottom paragraphPubMed ID18937365
Primary Source [81] Sereno PC. The evolution of dinosaurs. Science. 1999 Jun 25 284(5423):2137-47 DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5423.2137 [82] Wahlberg N. That awkward age for butterflies: insights from the age of the butterfly subfamily Nymphalinae (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Syst Biol. 2006 Oct55(5):703-14 DOI: 10.1080/10635150600913235PubMed ID10381873, 16952908
Method Primary source [82] abstract: "In this study [investigator has] used a surprisingly good fossil record for the subfamily Nymphalinae (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) to estimate the ages of diversification of major lineages using Bayesian relaxed clock methods. [He has] investigated the effects of varying priors on posterior estimates in the analyses."
Comments P.1159 left column bottom paragraph: "Both butterflies and birds contain comparable number of species (an estimated 15,000 butterfly species versus an estimated 10,000 bird species), use color in the context of both natural and sexual selection, and have evolved over a similar time period in evolutionary history (~160 mya (million years ago) for birds)(primary source 81) and (+140 mya for butterflies)(primary source 82)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 117177