Of the 1,557 species shown on the checklist for Cuba (R. N. Aguila & A. B. Cañamero, 2012, ZooTaxa 3384:1-59), 46% are found on the checklist for North America. Matthew J. C. Barnes' list for Jamaica contains 658 species of which an almost identical 45% are found in North America. Pierre Zagatti's list for the French West Indies contains 358 species of which 53% are also found in North America. This higher percentage is probably due to the fact that Zagatti does not list any micromoths. For Puerto Rico the preliminary checklist indicates that 491 of 987 species (50%) occur in North America (G. N. Wolcott [Forbes, Schaus] and Aaron Cavosie). Totals for six islands/island groups are shown at the bottom of the checklist. Higher percentages for the Virgin Islands and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are due to incomplete data representing relatively small collections of photographs of the most common species.

Only the data from Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico are reasonably complete. Much more information is needed from the other island groups, and lists from the Bahamas, British West Indies and Grenada need to be compiled. It is not contemplated to include the Netherlands Antilles which, being very close to the mainland of South America, contain a larger and very different fauna. In addition to photographs presently on hand at MPG for the ~ 37% of species found also in North America, there are photographs of many more species that could be made available if others will collaborate in this project.

This checklist is actually a single, simple Excel spreadsheet which can be uploaded into a MySql database table. That table, with three additional columns not shown here, can be used by a few .php programs to present a checklist, plates and species pages for any island or island group, or for the Antilles as a whole. The three additional columns contain coding to distinguish superfamilies, families and subfamilies, control selection for a series of plates, and provide for numeric sorting and maintaining checklist sequence.

One difference between operating North American MPG and this Antillean project is that the labeling of photographs at MPG is strictly by use of Hodges numbers for each species. This system cannot be used, at least at the outset, for Antillean species because the checklist is very far from being complete. It will be necessary to label every photograph with the currently valid scientific name. This in turn demands an initial effort to not only validate names appearing in available lists but also standardizing those names based on original orthography. At MPG it is the original spelling of specific names that is used, not gender-conforming names.

Expressions of interest are sought from potential collaborators.

Included Islands and Island Groups

Bah = Bahama Islands ( plus Turks & Caicos )

Jam = Jamaica ( plus Cayman Islands)

Cu = Cuba

His = Hispaniola ( Haiti plus Dominican Republic )

PR = Puerto Rico

VI = Virgin Islands ( British and American )

BWI = British West Indies ( St. Croix, St. Martin, St. Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda )

FWI = French West Indies ( Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique )

StV = St. Vincent Group ( St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Barbados )