The MPG mapping project began in October of 2011. A database of 35,000 records was established using data from Mississippi Entomological Museum, two fascicles from the Moths of North America series, and a list contributed by Nolie Schneider of 800+ species she has photographed in her yard in suburban Ottawa, Canada. Additional data from many sources (listed below) have been added to the database. Of about 1,042,198 records processed thus far approximately 500,657 passed through a filtering process and now reside in the database. The distribution of these data is shown in the summary presented below.

Distribution maps now appear at the top of all MPG species pages for butterflies and moths. For some species we do not yet have data to display on the map. In other cases the data are not yet complete enough to adequately describe the range of the species. Collectors and photographers can substantially improve mapping coverage by submitting lists of species they have encountered. See details below.

Database Holdings as of  09-Nov-2013   State/Province Records Species       Alberta 15,018 2,036 Alaska 1,239 310 British Columbia 11,822 2,041 Greenland 2 2 Labrador 321 225 Manitoba 3,078 1,489 New Brunswick 6,709 1,284 Newfoundland 1,036 570 Nova Scotia 1,936 1,026 Northwest Territories 699 364 Nunavut 177 85 Ontario 15,493 2,481 Prince Edward Island 398 316 Quebec 8,315 2,205 Saskatchewan 2,222 1,270 Yukon Territory 1,333 481       Northern Areas 69,798 4,360       Alabama 5,201 1,389 Arizona 14,762 3,733 Arkansas 3,024 925 California 52,724 4,417 Colorado 8,883 2,017 Connecticut 3,035 603 Delaware 384 243 District of Columbia 91 79 Florida 27,842 3,048 Georgia 8,088 2,717 Idaho 1,668 606 Illinois 12,217 2,195 Indiana 5,782 2,266 Iowa 5,549 1,119 Kansas 2,156 804 Kentucky 32,932 2,407 Louisiana 4,704 1,642 Maine 13,768 2,713 Maryland 12,799 2,395 Massachusetts 5,265 1,581 Michigan 6,220 1,711 Minnesota 6,072 1,510 Mississippi 8,498 1,403 Missouri 1,614 712 Montana 3,852 1,300 Nebraska 1,967 616 Nevada 3,526 1,349 New Hampshire 2,717 1,263 New Jersey 3,875 1,319 New Mexico 6,083 1,971 New York 4,467 1,375 North Carolina 23,929 2,267 North Dakota 1,564 606 Ohio 44,097 2,647 Oklahoma 9,737 1,949 Oregon 5,076 1,400 Pennsylvania 4,848 1,511 Rhode Island 267 203 South Carolina 10,276 2,081 South Dakota 815 382 Tennessee 11,256 2,062 Texas 18,462 3,265 Utah 3,638 1,160 Vermont 557 398 Virginia 2,908 1,041 Washington 10,959 1,738 West Virginia 4,235 1,669 Wisconsin 7,043 1,700 Wyoming 2,122 888       U.S.A. Lower 48 Total 431,554 11,510       Total for North America 501,352 11,802       Aguascalientes 3 2 Baja California Norte 256 213 Baja California Sur 61 46 Campeche 155 92 Chihuahua 34 30 Chiapas 104 64 Coahuila 50 50 Colima 72 49 Durango 75 41 Guanajuato 90 77 Guerrero 7 7 Hidalgo 256 124 Jalisco 84 83 Mexico 162 63 Michoacan 345 150 Morales 13 10 Nayarit 6 5 Nuevo Leon 38 32 Oaxaca 232 85 Puebla 17 12 Queretaro 121 91 Quintana Roo 521 142 San Luis Potosi 24 21 Sinaloa 21 15 Sonora 45 35 Tabasco 140 55 Tamaulipas 18 17 Tlaxcala 1 1 Veracruz 37 25 Yucatan 34 17 Zacatecas 2 2 Mexico Total 3,024 663       Antigua 6 6 Bahamas 49 43 Barbados 11 11 Belize 20 19 Bermuda 8 4 Cayman Isloands 16 6 Costa Rica 18 8 Cuba 728 716 Dominica 11 5 Dominican Republic 414 390 El Salvador 44 42 Grenada 5 5 Guatemala 51 47 Haiti 4 4 Honduras 3 2 Jamaica 344 319 Martinique 190 190 Nicaragua 61 60 Puerto Rico 944 510 St. Croix 1 1 St. Lucia 7 7 St. Vincent 143 142 Trinidad 5 3 Virgin Islands 302 255 Southern Area 3,385 978       Database Grand Total 507,764 11,888

For all records from the Lower-48 United States of America we "normalize" the data to reflect center-of-county locations. Thus, records from my Prince George's County yard in Bowie, MD will "compete" for entry into the database with records for the same species coming from the United States National Museum, John Glaser's collection, and several other photographers who post P.G. County records at BugGuide. Only one record is needed from our county for any species. The blue dot representing a moth from my yard spans a 35-mile diameter area. In my case it covers the area from Washington, D.C. to Annapolis, MD and Chesapeake Bay and includes most of two counties. Standardizing the data by using center-of-county lati-longs permits us to do the same level of mapping with 300,000 records that would be accomplished with 700,000 or 1,000,000. The database and maps can accommodate records from Mexico and the Caribbean provided that they are for species that appear on our North American checklist. For records from the United Mexican States we use center-of-state lati-longs. For islands of the Caribbean we use center-of-island mapping points. The vast areas of Canada and Alaska represent a special problem. In much of that region there are no counties, but rather large administrative areas. So, for these northern areas we convert all lati-longs to the center of an approximately 35-mile-square in which the record falls. 10911 - Anicla infecta       Larger Map and Month Chart Collectors and photographers can substantially improve mapping coverage by submitting lists of species they have encountered. Please use a separate list for each county (or in Canada, each location) for which you have data. Please send your lists to MPG Mapping Data. If you do not have Excel or some other spreadsheet application, a simple list can be provided in which the three data fields are separated by commas: 0021.00,Sthenopis thule,Jul Using an Excel file, a report might look like this: Report From: Bob Patterson Location: 12601 Buckingham Drive, Bowie County: Prince George's State/Prov.: Maryland Lati-Long: 38.969915,-76.732801 0021.00 Sthenopis thule Jul 0269.00 Nemapogon multistriatella Aug 0639.00 Caloptilia stigmatella Apr 0639.00 Caloptilia stigmatella Aug 0922.00 Depressaria pastinacella Aug 0922.00 Depressaria pastinacella May 2278.00 Dichomeris glenni Jul 2301.20 Dichomeris isa Jun 2301.20 Dichomeris isa Aug 2492.10 Acrolepiopsis assectella Apr 2492.10 Acrolepiopsis assectella May 3334.00 Catastega aceriella Jun or....... 0021.00 Sthenopis thule Jul     0269.00 Nemapogon multistriatella Aug     0639.00 Caloptilia stigmatella Apr Aug Oct 0922.00 Depressaria pastinacella May Sep   2278.00 Dichomeris glenni Jul     2301.20 Dichomeris isa Jun Aug   2492.10 Acrolepiopsis assectella Apr May Jun 3334.00 Catastega aceriella Jun     9669.00 Spodoptera ornithogalli Aug Sep   9679.00 Elaphria chalcedonia Jun Jul   Please do not submit single records. We simply will be unable to handle a massive amount of email. Send your accumulated data and then supplement it with annual reports. If you are posting all of your photographs at BugGuide we will obtain the information there. We will not display personal information. Contributors will be acknowledged in a listing on this page. To obtain accurate lati-longs, you may use this online application: Latitude and Longitude of a Point. It will pinpoint almost any address, place name, park or preserved area in the United States or Canada. Unsure about a county name? Type "Santa Ana NWR, Texas, County" into Google and you will quickly find out it is in Hidalgo County. If records from the USA include the county name you do not have to supply lati-longs. We have a computer program that will do it. If you supply accurately spelled, currently valid, Latin names you do not need to supply Hodges numbers. We have a program that will do that, also. But it will be very helpful if you supply both the Hodges number and the Latin name. You may download a copy of the North American Checklist and use it for correct spellings and numbers. It is an Excel table of 2.41 MB. Download 10911 - Anicla infecta (chart is truncated) We will supply to compilers of state/provincial, regional or specialty databases records from the MPG mapping database, and request contributions from all such sources. Please keep in mind that our lati-long data are as described above, and that we store only the month and not complete dates. We do not store data pertaining to individual collectors or photographers. We solicit the assistance of volunteers who will extract mapping information from journal articles, books, monographs and Internet documents. Use of an Excel file or other spreadsheet application may be necessary. Technical expertise is not required. If you would like to help please contact MPG. Funding for this project was supplied by Mississippi Entomological Museum. Development of software for mapping applications and advice regarding data requirements were provided by Mike Boone. Database tables and processing of data were contributed by Bob Patterson.

Contributors to the MPG Mapping Project

Museum Collection Databases

• Canadian National Collection - Don Lafontaine, Chris Schmidt
• Illinois State Museum - Everett Cashatt
• Maine Forest Service - Charlene Donahue
• Mississippi Entomological Museum - Richard L. Brown
• Peabody Museum of Natural History - Larry Gall
• E. H. Strickland Entomological Museum - Felix Sperling
• United States National Museum - John Brown, Mike Pogue
• University of Guelph: BOLD Barcoding - Paul Hebert

Publications: CD, Print and Internet

Nolie Schneider, Cynthia Van Den Broek and Bob Patterson have contributed data extracted from .pdf files and other published reference material. You are invited to join in this valuable activity. Send email to MPG to volunteer.

• The Lepidopterists' Society Season Summaries - Leroy Koehn
• Wedge Entomological Research Foundation
  MONA fascicle 7.6 - Gelechiidae: Ron W. Hodges
  MONA fascicle 8.1 - Tortricidae: Jerry Powell & John Brown
  MONA fascicle 17.2 - Geometridae: Douglas Ferguson
  MONA fascicle 27.1 - Noctuidae: Don Lafontaine
  MONA fascicle (forthcoming) - Acronictinae: Chris Schmidt & Gary Anweiler
• BugGuide: Iowa State University - John VanDyk
• Moths of Maine - Austin Brower
• Moths of Maryland - John Glaser
• Illinois Natural History Survey - Glenn Collection
• Lepidoptera of Florida - John Heppner
• New Brunswick & Maritimes - Tony Thomas
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Mike Pogue, Brian Scholtens
• Cuba - Rayner N. Aguilo, Alejandro B. Cañamero
• CBIF - Canadian Biological Information Facility - Macromoths
• Pacific Northwest Moths - Lars Crabo

State Databases

• California, Nevada, Arizona - Kelly Richers
• Moths of Iowa - Jim Durbin
• Kentucky Butterfly Net - Jeff Marcus
• Louisiana Moths - Vernon A. Brou, Jr.
• North Carolina State Parks - Tom Howard
• Ohio Lepidopterists - Rick Ruggles
• Moths of Puerto Rico - Aaron Cavosie
• South Carolina Moths - John Snyder

Collectors and Photographers

• Val Albu - Continent-wide collection
• Ken Bliss - NJ, MX
• Richard M. Brown - Hemisphere Butterflies
• Jean Dane - ME
• Bill Dempwolf - KY, NM, OK, TX
• Tom Dimock - CA
• Julian Donahue - Symmerista
• Lance Durden - St. Catherines Island, GA
• Joe Garris - NJ
• John Glaser - WV
• Jennifer Hanson - NJ
• Betsy Higgins - MA
• Kyle Johnson - MI, MN, WI
• Steve Johnson - PA
• Deb Lievens - NH
• Stuart Marcus - TX
• Debbie Matthews - Pterophoridae
• Eric Metzler - Midwest, Southwest research collection
• Tomas Mustelin - WA, CA
• Arne Myrabo - MN
• Steve Nanz - NY, ME, PA
• Bob Nuelle, Jr. - East TX Natural History Survey
• Bob Patterson - MD, FL
• Evan Rand - Southwest
• Russell Rahn - GA, KY, TX
• Greg Raterman - KY
• David Reed - ME, MN
• Kelly Richers - Continent-wide collection
• Dave Roberts - MD
• Jeff Rouze - TX
• Michael Sabourin - Tortricidae Research Collection
• Stephanie Shank - Mostly Southwestern
• Paul Sweet - IL
• William Taft - Sesiidae Research Collection
• Nolie Schneider - ON
• Jim Taylor - GA
• Martin Turgeon - NB, QB
• Jim Vargo - IN
• Dennis Washburn - VA
• Karl Wilson - NY
• Carol Wolf - FL, MI
• Robert Zimlich - AL