is a kaiju

Kaiju

is a Japanese word that means "strange beast," but often translated in English as "monster". Specifically, it is used to refer to a genre of tokusatsu entertainment....

, a type of fictional monster who first appeared in the serialized novel The Luminous Fairies and Mothra

The Luminous Fairies and Mothra

The Luminous Fairies and Mothra is a serialized novel written by Takehiko Fukunaga, Shinichiro Nakamura, and Yoshie Hotta. Originally serialized in Weekly Asahi and later collected in paperback form, the novel was the basis for the 1961 film Mothra and is the first appearance of the kaiju Mothra...

by Takehiko Fukunaga, Shinichiro Nakamura, and Yoshie Hotta. Since her film début in the 1961 film Mothra, she has appeared in several Toho

Toho

is a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...

 tokusatsu

Tokusatsu

is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects ....

 films.

Generally regarded as female

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 by English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

-speaking audiences, she is a giant lepidopteran with characteristics both of butterflies and of moths

Differences between butterflies and moths

A common classification of the Lepidoptera involves their differentiation into butterflies and moths. Butterflies are a natural monophyletic group, often given the sub-order Rhopalocera, which includes Papilionoidea , Hesperiidae , and Hedylidae . In this taxonomic scheme moths belong to the...

. She closely resembles an Inachis io

Inachis io

The European Peacock , more commonly known simply as the Peacock butterfly, is a colourful butterfly, found in Europe, temperate Asia as far east as Japan. It is the only member of the genus Inachis...

, or a European Peacock Butterfly.