Butterflies and Moths of North America

collecting and sharing data about Lepidoptera

National Moth Week is July 20-28, 2024!

Moths are amazing creatures. Take photographs and share your moth sightings with us to document the moths where you live.

BAMONA's blog

Volunteers needed for Monarch study

Tyler Flockhart, a PhD student at the University of Guelph, is soliciting volunteers for two projects. Tyler studies the population dynamics of monarch butterflies. This coming summer he will be studying the movement of monarchs throughout the breeding season at sites across eastern North America.

The first project looks at how monarchs re-colonize the breeding range in the spring. The second project focuses on movement throughout the entire breeding season and early fall. Information from these projects will be used in population models to determine how monarch populations grow during the breeding season. Ultimately, this is one of the key pieces of information needed to guide conservation planning for monarchs.

Volunteers will receive sampling instructions, storage envelopes, and datasheets to record their information. Please contact Tyler at dflockha@uoguelph.ca or 519-265-7833 if you are interesting in volunteering or have further questions about these projects.

See the attached flier for more information.

Canadian records displayed at last

Despite collecting Canadian data since June 2006, the BAMONA project was never able to display these data points on the occurrence maps. With the launch of the new BAMONA web site, the old era is over. Now, Canadian records are finally displayed alongside the rest of their North American counterparts. The number of Canadian records in the database is small, but we are optimistic that new user submissions and future additions of bulk Canadian records will build on these humble beginnings.

New family, new subfamilies, and eighteen new moth species

The families Adelidae and Galacticidae were added to the database, along with subfamilies Adelinae (Adelidae), Acetropinae (Crambidae), and Yponomeutinae (Yponomeutidae). Eighteen moth species were also added to the database: Adela caeruleella, Tebenna gnaphaliella, Petrophila canadensis, Petrophila bifascialis, Microcrambus minor, Sitochroa palealis, Scoparia cinereomedia, Dasychira plagiata, Homadaula anisocentra, Acontia terminimaculata, Panthea acronyctoides, Immyrla nigrovittella, Olethreutes bipartitana, Olethreutes furfuranum, Archips infumatana, Acleris britannia, Acleris schalleriana, and Yponomeuta padella.