Lepidoptera Of Florida

ABSTRACT

The Lepidoptera of Florida are cataloged, totalling 2,941 species, later to be diagnosed and illustrated in the planned 10 part series. This first part includes a general introduction to the Lepidoptera, including the general morphology of Lepidoptera families and keys for their identification, and sections on Florida ecosystems and environment as this relates to the Florida Lepidoptera fauna and its biology. The main text of this first part on Florida Lepidoptera involves a catalog of all verified resident species of moths and butterflies and regular visitor species, excluding erroneous records and rare strays. The catalog is an altered revision of Kimball’s (1965) checklist, which was Volume 1 of the Arthropods of Florida and Neighboring Land Areas series. Coverage for each species includes the following: the full scientific name and synonyms thereof; any common name known for the species; notation of the current MONA checklist (Hodges, et al., 1983) and McDunnough checklist (1938-39) numbers; indication of the range within Florida, based on biogeographic regions developed for Florida vegetation by West and Arnold (1952) and also used by Kimball (1965), the known range for the species elsewhere; date ranges by month for known adult activity; and known hostplants arranged alphabetically by plant genus and species. Indices include a hostplant index arranged alphabetically for all plant genera, species, and plant names, plus indices for common and scientific names of Lepidoptera. Illustrations include numerous maps and photographs showing the physical and natural environment of Florida, and 55 plates showing more than half of the Florida Lepidoptera species. The introduction includes a review of the family classification and a world-wide key to families. Also included are lists of Florida pest species and their common names, and lists of beneficial, stray, and endemic species. Species recorded in error for Florida are also noted, as are name changes. New synonymies are in Hesperiidae (4147), Nymphalidae (4557 and 4576), and Noctuidae (11104). New combinations are in Nepticulidae (113, 115, and 118) and Elachistidae (1124.1 and 1132.2). New status changes are in Lycaenidae (4354), Nymphalidae (4576), Geometridae (6486, 6487, and 6735) and Lymantriidae (8298).

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY

Dr. John B. Heppner was born November 18, 1947, in Timmendorfer-Strand, a coastal town near Lübeck, north of Hamburg, Germany. In 1954, his parents emigrated with him to New York, moving to San Diego, California, in 1961, where he finished high school in nearby Lakeside. In 1965, he entered the University of California at its new San Diego (La Jolla) campus, then transferred to the Berkeley campus in 1967 to study entomology. At Berkeley, he helped with curation of the insect collection (now called the Essig Museum of Entomology) and came under the influence of Dr. Jerry A. Powell, who first introduced him to the Microlepidoptera. In 1968, he took the summer field entomology course in Arizona, where the Riverside campus of the University of California conducted the course that year. After first completing a B.A. degree in 1970, he finished the B.S. degree in entomology in 1972, and then went to Gainesville, Florida, for graduate studies in entomology at the University of Florida, finishing the Ph.D. in 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Dale H. Habeck. Already in 1976, he was awarded a Smithsonian Institution fellowship to study the collections at the USNM, thus finishing his doctoral research, on the sedge moth family Glyphipterigidae for North America, in Washington. In late 1976 and early 1977, he visited major European museums as part of his research for the revision. In early 1983, after working 4 years at the Smithsonian as Curator of Microlepidoptera, from 1978-82, he accepted a position with the Division of Plant Industry, Florida Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Gainesville, and currently is Curator of Lepidoptera and Immature Insects. He also is an adjunct professor of entomology at the University of Florida and is a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution. He has travelled widely in North America, South America, and Europe, plus parts of Asia, in pursuit of elusive species of moths and to add specimens to the FSCA collections, both for adults and larvae, with major projects in Chile, Hungary, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, Taiwan, and Venezuela, besides Florida. He has had National Science Foundation, National Academy of Sciences, and National Geographic Society grants for Lepidoptera projects in Hungary, Indonesia, Romania and Taiwan, as well as other grants for research. Since coming to Florida in 1972, and then again after 1983, he has surveyed the state for Lepidoptera and added many new records to the state list. He has written nearly 200 papers and books on Lepidoptera. He founded a Neotropical Lepidoptera newsletter in 1987, which became the Association for Tropical Lepidoptera in 1989, and now is editor of their journals and books. In 1997, the 200th anniversary year of the publication of John Abbot’s illustrations of butterflies, he was awarded the Abbot Award of the Southern Lepidopterists’ Society. He serves on the board of directors of the Association for Tropical Lepidoptera, and is on the advisory boards of Butterfly World (Coconut Creek, Florida), the Sociedad Hispano-Luso-Americana de Lepidopterologica (Madrid, Spain), and Academia Sinica (Taipei, Taiwan).

FOREWORD

The present catalog gives the first complete update to the 1965 catalog compiled by Charles P. Kimball. It brings together many collection records, particularly of northern species and tropical species newly discovered in Florida since the time Kimball finished his catalog manuscript in 1963. A number of new species have been described since then as well. The present catalog forms a more uniform treatment for each species than what Kimball presented, while future parts will cover each species in more detail. All names and references have been updated to mid-2003. Each species has the same treatment: range in Florida (according to regional codes) and the rest of North America, dates of occurrence of adults in Florida, and recorded hostplants. Since Florida has so many exotic plants in backyard plantings, all known hosts are listed for each species, even if the plants do not grow naturally in Florida.

In the introductory section, the present treatment is more extensive than what Kimball presented in 1965, although some details he noted are not repeated herein. The bibliography includes all references on Florida Lepidoptera up to mid-2003, but is divided to segregate those references only pertaining to the habitats and ecology of Florida, and the history of Lepidoptera studies in Florida, from those references referring to the species themselves. The indices are likewise divided so names can be more easily located: common names, species, and genera being in separate indices. All hostplants listed herein are indexed by the MONA (Moths of America North of Mexico) species number for Lepidoptera: the MONA catalog number is still used herein since no more current catalog is available yet, even though the family arrangement has been altered somewhat since the 1983 MONA catalog. The second part of this series on Lepidoptera will provide a cross-index to Lepidoptera by hostplant name, noting the type of feeding each lepidopteran is known to do on each host.

John B. Heppner, Ph.D., Series Editor
Entomology Section
Bureau of Entomology, Nematology, and Plant Pathology
Division of Plant Industry
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services