Butterfly Conservation	Species Distribution Maps
	Saving butterflies, moths and our environment

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Scientific Names				Common Names
Micros		Macros & Bflies				All sp.
A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X
Y	Z	—	&	'	Space
Delete last character				Clear species name
10Km latest   oldest				VC latest   oldest
No. of years
All + Lat.		West		North		South
⇦ 2sp.		⇦ 1sp.		1sp. ⇨		2sp. ⇨

For details of the map information, please see the main version of the page which is designed for viewing on a computer screen.

To select a species on this version, choose Common or Scientific name, then enter at least 3 characters on the keypad to see the number of matches (this is shown in large red numerals at the top right of the page). Enter more characters to reduce the number of matches if appropriate, then select the species from the drop-down list of matches.

After viewing the map for one of the matches you can select another match, and you can re-select any of the last 10 selections from the Recent list. The species density map is always available from the bottom of the Recent selections list

Record data used for the maps:

Macro-moth distribution data from the National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS) and butterfly distribution data from the Butterflies for the New Millennium (BNM) Recording Scheme, courtesy of Butterfly Conservation. Records were made available for the period up to 2019 on the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas website in September 2023. Use of these records is covered by the Creative Commons with attribution non-commercial licence (CC-BY-NC). Butterfly Conservation has NMRS database rights. Recorders retain copyright of their original records. NBN Atlas occurrence downloads at NBN Atlas accessed on 28 & 29 September, 2 & 3 October 2023 (moths) and 21 February 2024 (butterflies).

For micro-moths, full national record data was not available. Annual microlepidoptera reviews are published in The Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation. The reviews contain mostly new Vice County records, also some re-finds after long absences and entries for other reasons such as use of a previously unreported larval foodplant. The micro-moth VC data is from three sources:

• the microlepidoptera reviews for 1995 to 2022 inclusive.
• manuscript VC maps to 2014 for most UK microlepidoptera which are available for viewing on Butterfly Conservation's website. A few of the manuscript map links were not working. In most cases the distribution shown in The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland (MBGBI) series of books has been used instead; typically the manuscript maps show the MBGBI distribution plus later additional VCs.
  Please note that there are probably some errors and omissions in the interpretation and extraction of VC records from the scanned manuscript maps.
• More than 100 Gloucestershire VC33 and VC34 records for species which for whatever reason are not on the manuscript maps nor reported in an annual review.

On the maps records extracted from the annual reviews for 2000 onwards are colour-coded by 5-year periods, but there could be some errors. Any other VC records extracted from the manuscript maps are shown as pre-2000 records, and any Gloucestershire VC33/34 missing records are shown according to the earliest tetrad-mappable year in the data used for Gloucestershire maps.

Those adventive species listed in Appendix A of the Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles are excluded from these maps.

Disclaimer

There is no guarantee of complete accuracy in terms of the species recorded, their locations and dates. The known difficulties of accurate identification in some species groups means that in a dataset containing tens of millions of records it is quite likely that some mistakes have survived the record verification processes. The Vice County data for macro-moths and butterflies may contain errors, and there could be errors and omissions in the data for micro-moths extracted from annual reviews and manuscript maps.

Use of this web page is entirely at your own risk. No liability is accepted for any indirect, consequential or incidental loss or damage arising from its use. There is no guarantee that the scripting which loads the map and chart data and which uses it to construct the displays and species lists will run without causing any problems in a particular browser on a particular device. You are advised to ensure that any work (document editing, etc) has been saved before making use of this page, and to avoid opening more than one version/copy of this page simultaneously.

Page last revised November 2024
Butterfly Conservation. Company limited by guarantee, registered in England (2206468).
Registered Office: Manor Yard, East Lulworth, Wareham, Dorset, BH20 5QP.
Charity registered in England and Wales (254937) and in Scotland (SCO39268).
VAT No GB 991 2771 89

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