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UK Lepidoptera Checklist Synonyms

This page provides an alphabetical index to the scientific species and subspecies names and synonyms in the Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles, D J L Agassiz, S D Beavan and R J Heckford, 2013 and subsequent amendments, obtained from a spreadsheet version downloaded from the Natural History Museum Data Portal. Natural History Museum (2022). Data Portal Query on "Agassiz Lepidoptera 20220628a.xslx" created at 2022-07-01 07:24:22. 187770 PID https://doi.org/10.5519/qd.zg8ojon9. Subject of "Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles - Data" (dataset) PID https://doi.org/10.5519/0093915. This is under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 License, which also applies to this web page. Disclaimer: the Museum cannot warrant the quality or accuracy of the data.

Some additional synonyms have been added from older sources, and some additional name useage taken from the checklist Notes section. This is intended to assist recognition of species from lists published in historical books and articles, and to draw attention to the number of species possibly corresponding to past use of some names. Most of these additions were obtained from "The Entomologist" Synonymic List of British Lepidoptera, R. South, 1884. This list and a number of other historical items on British lepidoptera are available for view and download on the Biodiversity Heritage Library website. To avoid confusion with checklist entries such additions have an underscore "_" appended to the name, and some more doubtful old names have "_?" appended. Disclaimer: there is no guarantee of the accuracy of the assignment to species of any of these additions, and not all of the total possible additions have been found, assigned to a current species name and added to this index. Only names used for species and subspecies have been included here; some of these have also been used for forms/varieties of the same species, but other named varieties are excluded. The different genus names used for some species have not been listed.

Some identification problems when using old species lists:

Each row of the index contains the ABH number, the Bradley list number (if any) in brackets, the ABH list taxon followed in alphabetical order by the ABH list synonyms and subspecies (if any) and the synonyms from other sources. Ss after a name indicates a subspecies from the checklist. A name used for one species as both a subspecies and as a synonym is only listed once here, and a nominate subspecies name is not listed as a subspecies. The scientific names are followed by the common name (in brackets if not taken from the ABH checklist), and for most species the typical UK larval food [in square brackets] derived from various sources. Disclaimer: the larval food information may not be complete or entirely correct. It is there to assist determining the species in an old report if the name used has multiple index entries, when the report mentions the foodplant.


The fastest way to use this page is to set the display position without using the scrollbar. To do this, type a [Space] to clear the previous search text, followed by the first few letters of the species name (not the genus). As each letter is typed, the list should be repositioned at the first entry matching the letters so far typed if there is one, otherwise the display position remains unchanged. If the repositioning is incorrect, try adjusting the text area font height and/or line spacing using the selection boxes below. The positioning has only been tested using the Chrome browser.
NB If the index text area is not surrounded by a thick black border, positioning by keyboard input will not work until you click on the text area or anywhere else on the page (except selection boxes and hypertext links).

               

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Page last revised December 2022
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