The most obvious difference is in the feelers, or
antennae. Most butterflies have thin slender filamentous antennae which are club shaped at the end. Moths, on the other hand, often have comb-like or feathery antennae, or filamentous and unclubbed. This distinction is the basis for the earliest taxonomic divisions in the Lepidoptera - the
Rhopalocera ("clubbed horn", the butterflies) and the
Heterocera ("varied horn", the moths).
There are, however, exceptions to this rule and a few moths (the family
Castniidae) have clubbed antennae. Some butterflies, like
Pseudopontia paradoxa from the forests of central
Africa, lack the club ends. The
Hesperiids often have an angle to the tip of the antenna.
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