At a Glance

S​cientists already knew that butterflies evolved from moths about 100 million years agoBut they didn't know where.The study also looked at how butterflies spread across the planet.

Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

A​ researcher in Florida fulfilled his childhood dream by finding where in the world butterflies originated.

T​he answer? Somewhere in present-day Central America or western North America.

T​he result of the years-long endeavor was recently in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“It’s something I’ve wanted since visiting the American Museum of Natural History when I was a kid ... It’s also the most difficult study I’ve ever been a part of, and it took a massive effort from people all over the world to complete," study lead author Akito Kawahara, a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said in a news release.

(​MORE: Why Are Heat Waves Getting Worse?)

S​cientists already knew that butterflies evolved from moths that, about 100 million years ago, started flying during the day instead of at night, according to the museum. But they didn't know where it happened.

T​o find out, Kawahara and researchers from dozens of countries created "the world's largest ," with DNA from more than 2,000 species to show butterflies' evolution. From there, the were able to trace movements and feeding habits.

“In many cases, the information we needed existed in field guides that hadn’t been digitized and were written in various languages,” Kawahara said.

(MORE: Why Is It Illegal To Pick Wildflowers At California's Pinnacles National Park?)

B​esides narrowing down where butterflies came from, the researchers also looked at how they spread around the planet, which was vastly different at the time.

They discovered that b​utterflies first spread to South America, and then across the Bering Land Bridge to Asia, into the Middle East and parts of Africa. From there they spread all the way to what is now India, which at the time was an island surrounded by miles of open ocean, and eventually to Europe.

Butterflies today face numerous threats around the world. Monarch butterflies in particular are to the effects of habitat loss, climate change and drought, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A Monarch butterfly hovers above blooming sylphium flowers.

(Thomas Dunkerton/USFWS)

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, .