Butterfly! The name itself conjures up images of delicate, brightly colored insects fluttering from flower to flower as they glean their sustenance from the nectar hidden therein. Butterflies are surely among the worlds most beautiful and most appreciated insects. Butterflies do not bite. They do not sting. They do not carry diseases. They do not make a lot of noise. They do not do much of anything except host a myriad of beautiful colors that can be enjoyed by people throughout the world.

Scientifically, butterflies are animals (Kingdom Metazoa) that do not have a backbone, but instead have a hard shell that is located on the outside of the body (exoskeleton) and in addition have paired many-jointed legs, thus they are grouped into the phylum Arthropoda; the largest phylum in terms of numbers of species and numbers of individuals of all the groups of plants and animals in the world. Butterflies' bodies are divided into three distinct sections: the head, the thorax (middle section), and the abdomen (the posterior section) and for this reason are grouped with other invertebrates (animals that do not have backbones) sharing these traits into the class Hexapoda (the insects). They are further divided into the subclass Pterygota which contains all winged insects and finally into the order Lepidoptera (scale-wing insects) along with the moths. The wings of both butterfies and moths have tiny shingle-like scales that impart the pattern and color to the wings of these colorful insects. (Unfortunately, these scales come off very easily if the insects are handled.)

Origin of this site: In 1994 we started placing scans of live dragonflies collected in north-central Texas on a web site called "Digital Dragonflies." As more specimens were collected and scanned, we started another site called the " Digital Dragonfly Museum." Included in this site were scans of dragonflies and damselflies. The damselfly scans were placed into a portion of the Digital Dragonfly Museum called "Damselflies of Texas ."

In 1996, Robert Behrstock, an excellent naturalist and nature photographer, was gracious enough to allow us to use some of his beautiful photos of both dragonflies and damselflies on the Digital Dragonfly Museum and the Damselflies of Texas sites. He also sent us some photographs of butterflies and other insects of Texas so we decided to put these in another site we named "Insects and More." As these sites grew, we were lucky enough to obtain additional photos from other excellent photographers such as Curtis Williams, Dave Westover (Sun Prairie, WI), Mike Quinn (Austin, TX), Nick Grishin (Dallas, TX), Ron Billings (Lufkin, TX), Bill Lindemann (Fredricksburg, TX), and also photos from our own James Lasswell (Stephenville, TX). The quality and magnitude of the butterfly images we have been able to accumulate has led us to move the butterflies out of the Insects and More site to one of their own. Larissa Heimer, who designed the site, was given the privilege of naming it and has chosen Nothing But Butterflies. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.