The ButterflyPage

Adult Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton), photographed in White County, Tennessee; photo Stephen J. Stedman.(21 May 2002).

A fairly complete list of the butterflies of Tennessee (138 species) may be viewed at the bottom of this page (Table 1).

    Maps displaying Tennessee counties in which each of the 138 species has been documented at the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) website may be viewed via the link below (NOTE: the maps were created by Doug Bruce and cannot be viewed with Internet Explorer; use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to access them; i.e., access this page with one of those browsers or the links at the page accessible via the link below will not work; many thanks go to the staff at BAMONA for allowing this use of the data from that website):

•  http://www.tnleps.org/maps/

    Check-lists displaying species documented/not yet documented in all Tennessee counties at BAMONA may be viewed via the page accessible via this link (thanks are due to Doug Bruce for maintaining these check-lists, as well as to the staff of BAMONA for allowing their Tennessee data to be used in this manner):

• http://www.tnleps.org/checklists/

    A page reflecting the first sightings of the year in Tennessee counties may be accessed via these links:

• Tennessee Butterfly Sightings 2008
• Tennessee Butterfly Sightings 2008: Season Summary
• Tennessee Butterfly Sightings 2009
• Tennessee Butterfly Sightings 2009: Season Summary
• Tennessee Butterfly Sightings 2010

     The beginnings of a bibliography of Tennessee Lepidoptera may be accessed via the following link:

• Bibliography of Tennessee Lepidoptera

    A page offering a few suggestions about identification and documentation of the tiger swallowtails of Tennessee may be viewed via the following link:

• Identification of Tiger Swallowtails in Tennessee

    Information about the butterflies of Putnam County, Tennessee (94 species), may be viewed at the links below:

• Butterflies of Putnam County, Tennessee (list of species)
• Butterflies of Putnam County, Tennessee (photos)

    A website that presents and updates much information about butterflies and moths formerly available at the website of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center is the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) website, which features a vast amount of excellent information about butterfly and moth identification and distribution; it can be accessed via this link:

• http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/

    If you maintain a list of butterflies observed in your home county (in Tennessee) and if you wish to have the species added to the county list at the BAMONA website, consult the following page of this website for minimum evidence needed to document various species:

• Documentation of Lepidoptera Records for Inclusion in the BAMONA Database

    A little information about butterflies of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area may be viewed at the link below:

• Butterflies of the Big South Fork (photos)

   Another good butterfly resource is the website of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA); note in particular its "Butterflies I've Seen" data-entry tool, which allows one to archive vast amounts of field data--for free:

• http://www.naba.org

    The website for Butterflies of America and the website of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of NABA are also good butterfly resources, as are two North Carolina sites and a Georgia site, the latter also being a good moth resource (links below):

• http://butterfliesofamerica.com/intro.htm
• http://www.nabamidtn.org
• http://www.duke.edu/~jspippen/butterflies.htm
• http://www.carolinanature.com/butterflies/
• http://www.daltonstate.edu/galeps/

    Butterfly counts are, or have been, conducted at 22 sites in Tennessee (Figure 1) under the auspices of NABA.  To see a map of the state with the sites of the NABA counts indicated on it, click on this link:

• Location of NABA Butterfly Counts in Tennessee

Table 1. Butterflies of Tennessee listed at the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) website; common names generally follow the NABA Checklist (2001), while scientific names and order follow Opler and Warren (2002) and the BAMONA website.

Literature Cited

North American Butterfly Association. 2001.  The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) Checklist
        & English Names of North American Butterflies. 2nd ed. North American Butterfly Association,
        Morristown, NJ.

Opler, P. A., & A. D. Warren. 2002. Butterflies of North America. 2. Scientific Names List for North American
        Butterfly Species North of Mexico. Contributions of the C. P. Gillette Museum of Arthropod Diversity, 
        Colorado State University. 79pp. ISBN: 1084-8819.

Quick links to other sections of this website:

• HomePage for SJS

• The BirdPage