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ECOLOGY ▪ EDUCATION ▪ ADVOCACY

Lepidoptera of Indiana

Butterflies, Moths and Skippers

Index by Common Name

Index by Taxonomic Name

The Great American IN Nature Lepidoptera Project (GAIN LP)

A Sampling of Sightings from the GAINLP

A Sampling of Sightings from the GAINLP

Index by Common Name

Index by Taxonomic Name

What is the Great American IN Nature Lepidoptera Project?

GAIN LP is a statewide community project, which documents the range and life cycles of Indiana’s Lepidoptera while increasing awareness and appreciation of these familiar insects. Through community participation, photographs and data will be used to populate a comprehensive, cost-free resource that will be devoted exclusively to Lepidoptera.

What are Lepidoptera?

Lepidoptera is one of approximately 30 orders within the zoological class of insects. Order Lepidoptera consists of the insects commonly known as butterflies, moths, and skippers, and it includes some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant insects in Indiana.

Lepidoptera are distinguished from other insects by the following combined features:

How does it work?

Statistic as of Saturday, Dec 21, 2024

Number of unique records in the database: 65691

Number of individual field observers: 1468

Acknowledgments and Contributors

The success of GAINLP has been completely dependent upon our community involvement and participation. As such, the following individuals are recognized for their contributions to this project.

Photographic and Data Compilers: Megan Bowman, JoAnne Cummings, Grace Danel, Laura Duket, Jeanette Jaskula, Chris Joll, Nancy Marshall, Dan McCord, Karen Wade, and Lisa Williamson

Spelling, Grammar, and Style Editors: Wesley Crouch, Michelle Dunn, Vicky Ebert Stirm, and Debby Vincent.

Field Observers and Photographers: click to view the entire list.

Sources Used

The following resources were used as references for numerous Lepidoptera webpages on this website. Additional sources are cited when applicable on individual pages:

Belth J. 2013. Butterflies of Indiana. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.

[BOLD] Barcode of Life Data Systems v4. 2019. [Accessed: October 26, 2019]. http://www.boldsystems.org/

Borror D. 1988. Dictionary of word roots and combining forms. Mountain View (CA): Mayfield Pub. Co.

Bouseman J, Sternburg J. 2001. Field guide to butterflies of Illinois. Champaign (IL): Illinois Natural History Survey.

Bouseman J, Sternburg J. 2002. Field guide to silkmoths of Illinois. Champaign (IL): Illinois Natural History Survey.

Brock J, Kaufman K, Bowers R, Bowers N, Kaufman L. 2006. Kaufman field guide to butterflies of North America. New York (NY): Houghton Mifflin.

Bugguide.net. [accessed 2018 May 17]. https://bugguide.net

Butterflies and moths of North America. 2018. [accessed 2018 May 17]. https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org

Encyclopedia of Life. 2018. [accessed 20 Oct 2018]. www.eol.org

Global Biodiversity Information Facility. 2018. [accessed 20 August 2018]. https://www.gbif.org

Integrated Taxonomic Information System. 2018 [accessed 2018 Oct 21]. https://www.itis.gov

Lepidoptera Barcode of Life. 2018. [accessed 2018 Jul 7]. http://www.lepbarcoding.org

Natural History Museum. 2019. [accessed 2019 Jul 4]. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/data/lepindex/lepindex/

NatureServe. 2018. [Accessed: October 21, 2018]. http://explorer.natureserve.org

Shropshire KJ. webmoths.xls. [accessed 2014 Jul]. http://canr.udel.edu/faculty/tallamy-doug/new_xls/webplants.xls

Tuskes P, Collins M, Tuttle J. 1996. The Wild Silk Moths of North America. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.

Umbers K, Lehtonen J, Mappes J. 2015. Deimatic displays. Current Biology 25:R58-R59. [accessed 2021 Feb 20]. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(14)01438-9.pdf

Wagner D. 2010. Caterpillars of Eastern North America. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.

Wisconsinbutterflies.org. 2018.[accessed 2018 May 17]. https://wisconsinbutterflies.org