The Is This a Butterfly meme, frequently referred to as Is This a Pigeon, originates from the 1990s Japanese anime series The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird. In the scene, the android protagonist Yutaro Katori mistakenly identifies a butterfly as a pigeon while attempting to learn about Earth's biology. While the image first circulated on Tumblr in 2011, it saw a massive resurgence in 2018. The format is widely used to mock people who are confused by obvious facts or to represent someone making a wildly inaccurate claim about a specific situation.