Prodryas
Sign in to saveProdryas persephone is an extinct species of brush-footed butterfly, known from a single specimen from the Chadronian-aged Florissant Shale Lagerstätte of Late Eocene Colorado. P. persephone is the first fossil butterfly to be found in North America, and is exquisitely well preserved. Its closest extant relatives are the mapwings and African admirals of the genera Hypanartia and Antanartia, respectively.
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Prodryas persephone is an extinct species of brush-footed butterfly, known from a single specimen from the Chadronian-aged Florissant Shale Lagerstätte of Late Eocene Colorado. P. persephone is the first fossil butterfly to be found in North America, and is exquisitely well preserved. Its closest extant relatives are the mapwings and African admirals of the genera Hypanartia and Antanartia, respectively.
==Significance== thumb|left|Color reconstruction of Prodryas persephone based on the colors of Hypanartia and Antanartia. The type specimen, now held at the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, was the first fossil butterfly to be found in North America, and has been described as "possibly the best fossil butterfly specimen ever found". The appearance of a figure of Prodryas in Samuel Hubbard Scudder's book Frail Children of the Air influenced the paleontologist Frank M. Carpenter to embark on his career. Scudder exhibited the specimen at the Royal Entomological Society of London in December 1893.