Book excerpt: Butterfly wing color patterns may indicate sex or distastefulness, may mimic other organisms, may act as camouflage, or they may confuse predators. Most species may be identified by their color patterns alone. Furthermore, the dorsal and ventral patterns may be very different and each has evolved separately. These patterns are not random but are homologous units which can be identified in all species. The patterns are permutations of the nymphalid ground plan. This book describes the elucidation of these homologies based on comparative morphology, genetics, and theoretical modelling. The book is supplemented by line-drawings, diagrams, photographs, charts, tables, graphs, three appendices: "Classification and systematics of the Butterflies", "Higher Classification of the Nymphalidae", and a list of genera in the figures in chapter 2 ("Pattern Elements and Homologies"), a bibliography and an index.--BIOSIS.