The animal itself
Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar largely dissolves — yet experiments show moths retain memories from the caterpillar stage, so something survives the liquefaction intact.1 of 2 calendars · 1,600 searches a month
Butterfly
The butterfly is read as transformation as a habit. It appears in one of the two birth calendars we cover. The two are presented online as interchangeable, yet they name the same animal on only 17 days of 365 — 4.7% of the year.
Which calendar assigns it, and when
Celtic calendar
30 September – 27 October
Its tree
Ivy
Only the Celtic calendar assigns this one. Anyone born in these dates gets a different animal from the other system — the two agree on 4.7% of days →
What it stands for, and where that came from
Transformation as a habit rather than an event.
Honoured in: Greek psyche means both soul and butterfly; Aztec Itzpapalotl; Japanese symbol for the spirits of the departed.
Counted across all 39 animals
Where the butterfly sits
22/39
animals here carry a birth-date range. The other 17 are symbols
people choose, not ones a date assigns.
4.7%
of the year — 17 days out of 365 —
is where the two calendars name the same animal. The rest of the time they
disagree.
15th
most looked-up of the 39 animals we cover.
Both calendars are published online as though interchangeable. They are not, and the disagreement is the reason two sites can give you different animals for the same birthday. How the two calendars differ →
Searched about as often
Butterfly is ranked 15 of 39 by search demand. Of all 39 animals here, 22 sit in one of the two birth-date calendars and 17 are searched as symbols only.