Butterflies of North Carolina:
their Distribution and Abundance

Welcome to the on-line "butterfly atlas" for North Carolina!

This website is more than just an atlas; it is a compilation of information about all of the 177 butterfly species that have been recorded in North Carolina, as of the end of 2024. This compilation has been updated for the past 31 years. Each species account, reached by clicking on a letter below or entering a name in either of the two boxes, provides a county map of its recorded occurrence, in addition to flight charts for each of the three physiographic provinces in the state. Each account also provides information on the distribution, abundance, habitat, flight dates, and other life history information; for nearly all species, one or more photographs taken in North Carolina are included. By clicking on "View PDF" on a species account page, one can see other information (not on the species account page), such as high counts, earliest and latest dates of occurrence, number of records for the previous year, and total number of counties reported. (The PDF also contains a county map for the species' occurrence in South Carolina.) The data on this website are based on the nearly 250,000+ records of all butterfly species entered into a database over these 32 years. Most of the data come from the general public, through e-mails posted to the carolinaleps listserve; some also come from the iNaturalist and other website databases. Starting in 2024, the colored county maps are automatically updated upon data entry by the authors, typically every two to four weeks. Starting in 2025, the flight charts on the account pages are also automatically updated at the same time.
Also check out the tabs on the left side of the homepage. The "30th Approximation" tab contains a copy of the entire document (about 200 PDF pages), with the county dot maps and flight charts. That Approximation also contains a long list of people who have contributed many records to the database (through 2023), in addition to several appendices, such as species that might occur in NC and various statistics. The "Search" tab is very useful for conducting queries, such as seeing all of the records of a single species over the entire state or for a particular county. The "NC/SC Checklists" tab contains field checklists for North Carolina and for South Carolina.

Enjoy browsing the website!
Common Name: Scientific Name:
Common Name begins with:
[ A ]  [ B ]  [ C ]  [ D ]  [ E ]  [ F ]  [ G ]  [ H ]  [ I ]  [ J ]  [ K ]  [ L ]  [ M ]  [ N ]  [ O ]  [ P ]  [ Q ]  [ R ]  [ S ]  [ T ]  [ V ]  [ W ]  [ Y ]  [ Z ]  
Scientific Name begins with:
[ A ]  [ B ]  [ C ]  [ D ]  [ E ]  [ F ]  [ G ]  [ H ]  [ J ]  [ L ]  [ M ]  [ N ]  [ O ]  [ P ]  [ S ]  [ T ]  [ U ]  [ V ]  [ Z ]  
Number of records: 249,926

Authors: Harry LeGrand [species accounts]     Jeff Pippen [database entry]     Tom Howard [website admin]
 
Citation: LeGrand, H., Pippen, J., and T. Howard. 2025. Butterflies of North Carolina: their Distribution and Abundance. 31st Approximation [Internet]. Raleigh (NC): North Carolina Biodiversity Project and North Carolina State Parks. Available from https://auth1.dpr.ncparks.gov/nbnc/a/accounts.php.