Lepidopterophobia

Lepidopterophobia is the fear of. It is a rather uncommon phobia that causes the sufferers to experience symptoms of nausea, panic attacks, and/or unpleasant irritating feelings of fear when confronted with butterflies, and in severe cases they will suffer from the same symptoms when confronted with almost anything butterfly-related, whether it be real or imaginative.

Most people who suffer from this type of phobia often report that they are afraid of their flashing colors, and/or their rapid wing-beating when they flutter around. It is not uncommon as well for sufferers of this certain type of fear to also despise or even fear other types of medium to largely sized flying insects and/or birds. Sufferers have also reported that they fear the creeping and irritating feeling when they imagine the insects crawling up or brushing against their skin (this has largely been linked to delusory parasitosis, a condition where people who have recently lost a loved one tend to achieve an irritating feeling of insects crawling up their skin, when in reality it is just in the sufferer's minds). Previous psychological trauma closely linked to butterflies may also contribute to their fear.