Authors:

General Advisors:

Jim P. Brock email, website
5150 N. Stonehouse Place, Tucson, AZ 85750.  Research Associate: Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute.  Author with Kenn Kaufman: Butterflies of North America; Author with Richard A. Bailowitz: "Butterflies of Southeastern Arizona"; Author with Thomas J. Allen & Jeffrey Glassberg: Caterpillars in the Field and Garden

Kenn Kaufman email, website Naturalist and Author of the Kaufman Field Guide Series.  Author with Jim P. Brock: Butterflies of North America

Dr. Robert M. Pyle
Author and Naturalist.  369 Loop Rd., Gray's River, WA 98621.  Founder of The Xerces Society.  Author: "National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies"; "The Butterflies of Cascadia; Watching Washington Butterflies"; "The IUCN Invertebrate Red Data Book"; "Handbook for Butterfly Watchers"; "Butterflies: A Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book"; "Insects: A Peterson Guide Coloring Book"; "Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land"; "The Thunder Tree: Lessons From an Urban Wildland"; "Where Bigfoot Walks: Across the Dark Divide"; "Chasing Monarchs: Migrating With the Butterflies of Passage"; "Nabokov's Butterflies" (with Brian Boyd & Dmitri Nabokov); "Walking the High Ridge: Life as a Field Trip."

Scientific Advisors:

Content Advisors:

Todd L. Stout email, website
1456 North General Drive, Salt Lake City, UT  84116, 801-558-6302.  Research Associate: The International Lepidoptera Survey. 
Member At Large: The Lepidopterists’ Society.  Secretary/Treasurer/Webmaster: Utah Lepidopterists’ Society; Founder, Webmaster: Utah Bug Club

 INTRODUCTION

In the interactive list presented herein, family-, genus-, and species-level nomenclature generally follows Pelham (2008) and/or Opler & Warren (2002, 2005) for taxa occurring in the United States and Canada, Smith et al. (1994) for Caribbean taxa, and Warren (2002), Lamas (2004), Mielke (2005), or recently published studies (e.g., Wahlberg et al. 2005, Brower et al. 2006) for other Neotropical taxa, with few exceptions.  All cases that differ from these sources, as well as undescribed taxa indicated in the list, will be elaborated upon in future publications currently under preparation by the authors of this list and their colleagues.  Scientific names used herein strictly conform to the mandatory provisions of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999), with one exception.  The provision in the Code requiring agreement in the gender of species-group names (when they are not or do not end in a Latin or Latinized adjective or participle in the nominative singular; see ICZN 1999: 38, article 31.2.1) with that of the genus-group name (ICZN 1999: 38, article 31.2, p. 43, article 34.2) has not been followed.  For a complete discussion of why the application of this provision is impractical and problematical, see Sommerer (2002) and Lamas (2004).  Therefore, in cases where the status of emended names is questionable (see ICZN 1999: 39-43, articles 32 and 33), the original orthography of names is used herein.  Use of the word “Complex” after a species’ name indicates that more than one species is apparently represented by that name, yet relationships of the undescribed taxa remain poorly understood.  Unlike scientific names, where rules dictated by the ICZN govern the use and application of all names, there are no rules governing the use or application of English, “common,” or “vernacular” names, and such names have no formal taxonomic standing.  Common names used herein are taken mostly from Warren & Llorente (1999), Brock & Kaufman (2006) and Warren et al. (2008), with new names coined for many Central American taxa.   

The current listing includes all species, subspecies, and distinctive undescribed segregates known to the authors to occur on the North American continent, from Alaska through Panama, Hawaii and the Caribbean islands (excluding Trinidad, Tobago, and islands off the Venezuelan coast).  Since our knowledge of the butterfly fauna of Mexico and Central America remains largely fragmentary, we anticipate frequent additions of Neotropical taxa to the list over time.   

See References for the Introduction

Important instructions for using the Interactive Listing of American Butterflies:
If a name on the Interactive Listing of American Butterflies is blue and underlined (otherwise known as a hyperlink or link), you can click on the link and you will be directed to a new page with citations for that species, along with photographs of pinned specimens, live adults, caterpillars, eggs, food plants and habitat if available.  If a citation name on the species page is hyperlinked, you can download it in PDF format by clicking on it.  The Interactive Listing of American Butterflies page shows the entire list.  The columns are in order from left to right: scientific names, common names, then notes on distribution, etc.. This listing will be updated on a near daily basis, so please check back often for updates!

There is a pull-down menu at the top of each page that will allow you to jump to any family on the List.

You will also want to visit the Electronic Reference Library for downloadable scientific papers in PDF format.
This is where you can download the current or archived Interactive Listing of American Butterflies.