I love butterflies, the insects of the order Lepidoptera with the beautiful wings.
I like butterflies too but I do not know much about them.  Where did they originate?
They are found across the world and date to the Paleocene about 56 million years ago.
56 million years!  Wow, that is a long time.  Do they live very long?
Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle which only lasts a few months from larva to death.
Isn't the first stage a caterpillar?  Or am I thinking of something else?
Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation
Butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers (formerly the superfamily "Hesperioidea"), and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies (formerly the superfamily "Hedyloidea"). Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, which was about 56 million years ago.