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The assembled lists and charts present all substantiated historical records of butterfly species ever to have been recorded, collected, or observed within the various counties of Maryland and Delaware or within the District of Columbia or Baltimore City as indicated. To access the main pages for Maryland, Delaware, or D.C., click on the desired link above. Each page contains lists divided by county (where applicable); cumulative state lists for Maryland and Delaware, compiled from this data, are also provided. All records are based on material appearing either in available published lepidoptera literature or otherwise known to the author Richard H. Smith, Jr. from his field work and numerous lepidopterist contacts. Major references for all of the included records are also listed below. The data timespan of the references for the majority of the material covers the period from the early twentieth century up to the present.
Mr. Smith has maintained such lists for several years as coordinator of butterfly species records for Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia for the former USGS NPWRC website "Butterflies of North America" and for the current successor website "Butterflies and Moths of North America" (BAMONA) at http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org. The butterfly lists on this website and on BAMONA will be updated by late January each year and so will represent the latest and most complete listings of all butterfly species ever reported and substantiated in each of the above jurisdictions. We will attempt to maintain consistency between butterfly records on this local website and on the BAMONA website. Note that butterfly lists on this site are easily accessible for review and can be printed in single-page format for each jurisdiction. In addition, this local website also contains butterfly records in large tabular format (see "Maryland [or Delaware] Butterfly Occurrence Chart" under the respective state selections). For an informative statewide summary in table format with additional biological species data, also see the "Maryland Butterflies Biological Summary and Checklist" below.
Note that by definition of the listing process here and on BAMONA, if a species does not appear under a particular county or city, the reason for its absence is merely that no one has yet reported it for that particular jurisdiction. There is no reason to conclude that the absence of a record implies that a species does not occur naturally in a particular jurisdiction; however, absences from entire regions, such as from the Allegheny Plateau or Lower Coastal Plain regions of Maryland, would more strongly support such a conclusion.
Several of the files below are in PDF format; if you don't have Adobe Acrobat, click the button below to download the free Adobe Reader.
Historical Record vs. Current Distribution of Occurrences
Keep in mind that the records on these lists are in large part historical records; they do not indicate rarity or potentially extirpated species. Some species may no longer be found in jurisdictions where they flew in the past due to any number of reasons, such as development and destruction or alteration of habitat. Want to help gather data on the current status of butterfly species in D.C. and MD? Visit the Volunteer page for details.
Lynn Davidson of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Wildlife & Heritage Division and Mr. Smith have composed and recently revised a current Biological Summary Checklist which more accurately reflects, in its "Occurrence Level" (OL) column, the rarity and distribution of occurrences of butterfly species within the state of Maryland at the present time. This list may be accessed below. The list may be printed as four sides of 11" x 8-1/2" sheets in landscape format for personal use.
Maryland Butterflies Biological Summary and Checklist
Interested lepidopterists, butterfliers, and collectors are invited to inquire about currently listed records and to contribute records that appear to be new for any of the above jurisdictions. Potential new records should be submitted by e-mail to Richard H. Smith at Richard.Smith@jhuapl.edu. The reporter should be able to qualify his or her records by at least a photograph or a very thorough explanation depicting the specimen's distinguishing characteristics for identification. In the case of record submissions for small hairstreaks and skippers, usually only a clear photograph will qualify for indisputable proof of identification. Field data should also be included and should consist at least of specific locality (details at the discretion of the reporter), exact date seen, and any associated nectar plants, larval hosts, and habitat or butterfly activity information of note.
General
Opler, Paul A. 1983 (April). County Atlas of Eastern United States Butterflies (1840-1982). Office of Endangered Species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC 20240.
Lepidopterists' Society Season Summaries for years 1959 to present (published annually by The Lepidopterists' Society, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles, CA 90007).
Personal field notes and collection of the author (Richard H. Smith, Jr.) and communications with numerous local amateur and professional lepidopterists I have known from the late 1960's to the present.
Maryland and District of Columbia
Clark, Austin H. 1932. The butterflies of the District of Columbia and vicinity. U.S. National Museum Bulletin No. 157. 337pp.
Wagner, Warren H., Jr. 1941. District of Columbia butterfly notes (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera). Entomological News (published by the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila., PA 19103) 52(7): 196-200 and 52(9): 245-249.
Simmons, Robert S. and Andersen, William A. 1956 to 1984. Notes on Maryland lepidoptera: Contribution #1 in Lepidopterists News (1956) and Contributions #2 (1962), #3 (1963), #5 (1976), and #6 (1979) in Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society (both published by The Lepidopterists' Society, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles, CA 90007). Contributions #4 (1970(71)), #7 (1978(80)), #8 (1978(80)), #9 (1978(80)), #10 (1981(83)), and #11 (1984) in Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera (published by the Lepidoptera Research Foundation, Inc., Beverly Hills, CA 90210).
Fales, John H. 1974 (December). Check-list of the skippers and butterflies of Maryland. Chesapeake Science (continued as journal Estuaries starting in 1978; published by the Estuarine Research Federation, University of Mississippi, University MS 38677) 15(4): 222-229.
Opler, Paul A. 1982 (February). Butterflies and skippers of the Washington, D.C. area (District of Columbia, Montgomery Co., and Prince Georges Co., Maryland, Alexandria Co., Arlington Co., and Fairfax Co., Virginia). Office of Endangered Species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC 20240.
Fales, John H. 1987(March). The butterflies of Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. The Maryland Naturalist (published by the Natural History Society of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21218) 31(1): 5-24.
Delaware
Notes from the Frank Morton Jones collection (late 1890's through 1930's) at the Yale Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT, accumulated by Dr. David M. Wright from Lansdale, PA in winter 1985-86.
Notes from the Frank Morton Jones collection (late 1890's through 1940's) and other specimens (1950's to 1980's) at the University of Delaware collection, Dept. of Entomology, Newark, DE 19717, accumulated by Dr. David M. Wright from Lansdale, PA in winter 1985-86.
Shapiro, Arthur M. 1966. Butterflies of the Delaware Valley. Special Publication of the American Entomological Society, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., Philadelphia, PA 19103. (lithoprinted in the USA by Cushing-Malloy, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI 1966). 79pp.
Woodbury, Elton N. 1994. Butterflies of Delmarva. Delaware Nature Society, Inc. and Tidewater Publishers, Centreville, MD 21617. 138pp.