Beauty is said to be only skin deep. Nevertheless, our brains work in such a way that we tend to equate beauty with worth. This is as true when we look at the natural world as when we consider people. The early natural historians were attracted especially to flashy groups such as butterflies and seashells. As a result, museum and private collections of these animals are huge, but since much of the early collecting was guided by esthetics rather than scientific zeal, information tends to be scanty for many kinds and many geographic areas. Few people really realize how common and diverse these groups are.
Admittedly, the Chihuahuan Desert doesn't have much in the way of
modern seashells, but it is well supplied with butterflies. A recent survey of the
literature covering a relatively small region around El Paso and Juarez turned up 118
reasonably expectable kinds of butterflies, while another 37 species have been recorded
at least once. Look around at them—maybe beauty doesn't equate with worth,
but it surely has some value in of itself. 
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.
A butterfly resting on a Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans) plant in the Chihuahuan Desert Gardens. Photograph by A.H. Harris.