Portraits of eye-catching butterflies, an immensely diverse insect order consisting of around 20,000 species worldwide.

See, and share, more photos in the Beautiful Butterflies gallery and Butterflies! group.

Photos from Foto Martien, S.c. de graaf, Seahorse_Cologne, kevinmoore57, WILDMANOFTHEWOODS2012, Paula J James, Ian A Kirk, *Gitpix*, and moonraker2012.