North Wales Lepidoptera Database

This online database contains all available* butterfly and moth records from the six vice-counties of North Wales: Montgomeryshire (VC47), Merionethshire (VC48), Caernarvonshire (VC49), Denbighshire (VC50), Flintshire (VC51) and Anglesey (VC52). (To see a map of the vice-counties click on the menu option above). The table below summarises the current number of records from each vice-county along with the number of species recorded.  Note that these numbers are recalculated whenever this page is loaded - hence the slight delay in loading the page.

Only records where the moth or butterfly was identified to the species level are included here, i.e. records assigned to aggregate categories are ignored.

	North Wales totals	VC47	VC48	VC49	VC50	VC51	VC52
No. of micro-moths recorded	1008	678	749	819	779	629	661
No. of macro-moths recorded	634	545	569	547	559	485	511
No. of butterflies recorded	50	44	46	46	39	38	37
Total no. of spp recorded	1692	1267	1364	1412	1377	1152	1209
Total no. of records	1,333,721	378,040	210,298	324,406	94,230	106,578	220,152

Database accessed: 12/25/2024 4:13:57 PM

 

A pivot table showing the number of records for each taxon by vice-county can be generated here: .

The information displayed in this website is generated dynamically whenever a request is made. Thus there are no distribution maps stored on the server so when a map is requested a complex series of actions occur to prepare the map and then send it to your browser. The advantage of this approach is flexibilty - nothing has to be prepared in advance. The disadvantage is that the whole website runs more slowly than many others which are much simpler and merely consist of a series of linked pre-prepared pages. Speed is a particular issue when dealing with very common species for which there are a large number of records. E.g. the map for Meadow Brown will take longer to generate than for some rarity with only one or two records.

Note that, in common with many other websites, this one requires your browser to be 'javascript enabled' and to 'accept cookies'. The latter functionality is needed simply to store temporary variables used in the behind-the-scenes processing. These are deleted at the end of your session.



  Recorders    New County Records by year     

Nomenclature

This website follows the nomenclature used in: Agassiz, D.J.L., Beavan, S.D. & Heckford, R.J.. 2013. A checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles.

The English names used for micro-moths are taken from: A Label and Checklist of the British Micro-lepidoptera with Vernacular Names (second edition), Jim Porter, October 2002. The Field Guide to the Micro-moths of Great Britain and Ireland, Sterling and Parsons, uses a different set of invented English names. It seems probable that these will catch on with the public, in which case the Jim Porter names will have to be dropped. Most people use the scientific names for micro-moths so the choice of English name is relatively unimportant. Let me know if anyone thinks we should change to the newer names.

The Welsh names for macro-moths are from a spreadsheet prepared by Duncan Brown.

The micro-moth UK status categories are taken from: A Review of the Status of Microlepidoptera in Britain, Butterfly Conservation Report No. S12-02, Tony Davis, January 2012.

Macro-moth UK status categories are from an earlier (2004) table also prepared by Tony Davis.



Acknowledgements

Many thanks to everyone who has helped make this website possible both by supplying datasets and by commenting on layout and functionality. I am particularly grateful to those of my fellow Vice-County Recorders who have been generous in supplying their county datasets and providing annual updates, to BIS (Biological Information Services) for allowing the use of their moth and butterfly records from Montgomeryshire and to Cofnod for close co-operation over the Lepidoptera records from Merionethshire.

*  Not all records from recent years have yet been collated. Also, not all of the county datasets have been made available for use on this website.