Prodryas

Prodryas persephone Temporal range: Chadronian PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
An 1887 engraving of P. persephone
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Nymphalinae
Genus:	†Prodryas Scudder, 1878
Species:	†P. persephone
Binomial name
†Prodryas persephone Scudder, 1878

Prodryas persephone is an extinct butterfly, known from a single specimen from the Chadronian-aged Florissant Shale Lagerstatte of Late Eocene Colorado. P. persephone is the first fossil butterfly to be found in North America, and is exquisitely well preserved. Its closest extant relatives are the mapwings and African admirals of the genera Hypanartia and Antanartia, respectively.

The type specimen, now held at the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, was the first fossil butterfly to be found in North America, and has been described as "possibly the best fossil butterfly specimen ever found". The appearance of a figure of Prodryas in Samuel Hubbard Scudder's book Frail Children of the Air influenced the young Frank M. Carpenter to embark on a career in paleoentomology. Scudder exhibited the specimen at the Royal Entomological Society of London in December 1893.

The single known specimen of P. persephone is a compression fossil, discovered by the "homesteader turned naturalist" Charlotte Hill, in shale deposits of Late Eocene age of the Florissant Formation near Florissant, Colorado.