EButterfly

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

EButterfly

EButterfly is an online database that collects butterfly sightings across North America. It helps track how many butterflies there are, where they live, and when they are active. Naturalists, entomologists, and many citizen scientists contribute observations in checklist form, and the data can be explored on maps and through searches. Photos can be added, and users can keep life lists and photo libraries. Submissions are reviewed by regional experts to keep the data high quality.

History
- EButterfly launched in 2012 by Max Larrivée and Jeremy Kerr of the University of Ottawa to study butterfly ranges in Canada and how climate change might affect them.
- It expanded to the United States in 2013 through partnerships with Kent McFarland (Vermont Center for Ecostudies) and Kathleen Prudic (Oregon State University).

Participation
- Community members enter sightings as part of regular butterfly counts or as incidental observations.
- There are checklists for each state and province; entries can include photos or not.

Research based on eButterfly observations
- A 2018 study of over 100,000 Canadian observations found five butterfly species new to Canada reported through eButterfly.
- Combining citizen-contributed data with traditional research data improved understanding of butterfly distribution and density.

See also
- Butterfly count
- List of citizen science projects

External links
- Official website: http://www.e-butterfly.org
- The North American Butterfly Monitoring Network (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20141230170002/http://www.nab-net.org/monitor-tracker