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. (There are currently 1,658  such aggregate records).

	North Wales totals	VC47	VC48	VC49	VC50	VC51	VC52
No. of micro-moths recorded	1003	677	745	810	776	627	657
No. of macro-moths recorded	639	551	574	547	561	486	515
No. of butterflies recorded	50	44	46	46	39	38	37
Total no. of spp recorded	1692	1272	1365	1403	1376	1151	1209
Total no. of records	1,294,265	378,015	204,244	311,711	84,326	99,597	216,355

Database accessed: 4/25/2024 12:23:42 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.



*  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. The records that are included are shown in the table below. (N.B. This table has to be updated manually so it often isn't up-to-date).

 

	VC47	VC48	VC49	VC50	VC51	VC52
Butterflies	up to end 2019	up to date	up to date	partial data only	partial data only	up to date
Moths	up to end 2022	up to date	up to end 2008. Some recent data.	up to end 2012 (macros) micros up-to-date	up to end 2012 (macros) micros up-to-date	up to end 2005. Some recent data.

 

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.

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.

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.

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