Using the Table: TEA Checklist of Ontario Moths

What's Here

Last updated May 1, 2022.

This table lists all moth species recorded in Ontario as of the date at the top of the table. New species will be added, and probably some will be deleted, as new information emerges. Subspecies are not considered since most information sources are at the species level and, in iNaturalist, a request to display the records for a species will display the records of all subspecies.

The table also provides other information for each species, drawn from various web-based databases. Since species names can vary across databases, Hodges and P3 numbers have been used to make the connections.

For each species, the table provides (where available):

• the Scientific Name, Common Name and Family.
  • ^ after the common name indicates an introduced species (Pohl et al. (2018)). 130 species are in this category.
  • + or _ before the family name means that the species belongs to a macromoth or micromoth family respectively (see Note 1).
• FieG: the page number in Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie (Houghton Mifflin, 2012).
• iNat: the link to the iNaturalist page for this species. (See Note 2 to find the page specific to Ontario.) There are two types of iNat links (see Note 3):
  •  N.i  links are for species that are "included" in iNaturalist's computer vision model (i.e, that are included in the automated suggestions, and thus can be a response to iNat's question "What did you see?").
  •  N.p  links are for species that are "pending" future work ( as of the last update in April 2022) and so will not be offered as possibilities.
• iNcx: the link to the to the iNaturalist page for the species "complex" -- a group of species in one genus that are hard to tell apart from a normal photo.
• #RG: the number of iNaturalist research-grade observations (i.e., observations for which the identification has been verified by a second observer) for Ontario as of April 19, 2022.
• MPG: the link to the Moth Photographers Group page. See Note 4.
• BG: the link to the BugGuide page.
• UoA: the link to the University of Alberta's Strickland Entomology Museum page.
• PNW: the link to the Pacific Northwest Moths page.
• P3: the P3 number (formerly called the MPG number), where there is a space after the 2-digit family code (e.g., "xx xxxx"). See Note 5.
  • * after the P3 number indicates a species that is not included in the Ontario list provided in Annotated Checklist of the Moths and Butterflies (Lepidoptera) of Canada and Alaska by G. Pohl et al. (Pensoft, 2018).
• Hodges: the Hodges number (or MONA [Moths of America North of Mexico] number).
• SRank: the subnational (i.e., Ontario) conservation status rank for this species from the all species list dated April 11, 2022 issued by the Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Clicking on the SRank will take you to the NatureServe Explorer page for the species (if available). This shows a map of the species' conservation rank in many states and provinces and also provides some biological information.
• Added: the year the species was first observed in Otario (only for 2020 and subsequent years). Almost 50 species have been added in these years.

Note 1. Macromoths, which are the larger moths such as noctuids, geometrids, sphingids, etc., account for 42% of all Ontario moth species. We define macromoths as species with a P3 number of 83 0001 or greater; all other species are micromoths (following Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America by Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle [Houghton Mifflin, 2018]).

Note 2. You may find that the iNaturalist page displayed from this link includes, in the information to the right of the picture of the moth, observations for the entire world. To see just information on Ontario observations, you can "Filter by Place." But if you would prefer to have this happen automatically, change your iNaturalist settings as follows: (1) At the top right of the page, click on your picture; (2) choose "Account Settings"; (3) choose "Account"; (4) under "Default Search Place," choose "Ontario, CA"; and (5) click "Save Settings." This will not affect the map -- it will still show all observations, inside and outside Ontario.

Note 3.Virtually all common species are included in iNaturalist's automated suggestions (as indicated on the bottom right of every species page). However, if you only look at iNaturalist's suggestions, you will be missing many species (30% of macromoths and 65% of micromoths). You can broaden your search by looking at other species in the genus or tribe that iNaturalist has suggested, using the Explore feature. Adding observations of such species to INaturalist helps them become "included" in the future, as this requires 100 photos.

Note 4. For MPG pages, take the dots on the map as only a general indication of the range -- the data is not reliable at this time. There are two problems: (a) the dots have no data to back them up (such as where the specimen or photo supporting the dot can be found), so there is no way to verify their accuracy; and (b) some dots for which the only information is the province or state have simply been put in that jurisdiction's geographic centre, making the location close to meaningless. MPG is in the process of fixing these problems.

Note 5. P3 numbers are from Annotated Taxonomic Checklist of the Lepidoptera of North America, North of Mexico, by Pohl, G.R., Patterson, B., & Pelham, J.P. (working paper, 2016), as updated on the Moth Photographers Group (MPG) website.

Using the Table

People seeking access to actual observations around the province for a particular species should click on its iNaturalist link. To obtain general species information, or additional photos and help to identify one's own observations, look up the indicated page in the Field Guide or click on the MG, BG, PNW and UoA links.

The table opens in P3 order (which is generally in ascending order of P3 numbers). To restore that order after sorting, click the refresh button on your browser. Clicking on any of the column headings will cause the table currently being displayed to be sorted by that column. Clicking again will reverse the order of the sort of that column. If anything is typed in the search box, the sort will operate on only the group of species currently being displayed. Thus, clicking on "#RG" while "Sphingidae" is typed in the search box will sort sphinx-moth species by the number of research-grade observations, from smallest to largest; clicking again will show the same group of species, but ordered with the species with the largest number of research-grade observations appearing first.

The search box operates on all components of the table and is not case-sensitive. Thus, for example:

• "Actias luna" or "luna moth" will find just that species.
• "luna" will find the four species having the text string "luna" somewhere in the name.
• "Catocala" or "catocala" will find all species in that genus (the underwing moths).
• "+" will find all macromoths; "%" will find all micromoths.
• "iNcx" will find all species belonging to an iNaturalist species complex.
• "^" will find all introduced species.
• "89 0070" (note the space in the middle) will find the species with that P3 number, the Polyphemus Moth.
• "*" will find the species in this table that are newly discovered, i.e., are not listed in the Pohl et al. checklist discussed below.
• "2021" will find all species newly discovered in Ontario in 2021.

Credits

The list of species has been provided by David Beadle, Mike King and Phill Holder, and is an update of the list included in their 2020 publication Ontario Moths: A Checklist (Hawk Owl Publishing, Newcastle, ON). That list, in turn, is an update of the Pohl et al. (2018) Ontario list cited above. The computer work was done by Alan Macnaughton in collaboration with Chris Cheatle, Ross Dickson and Bev Edwards. A similar list maintained by Ken Sproule for the High Park Moth Study Group was the inspiration for this effort. To cite the study in publications or other research, use the following: David Beadle and Alan Macnaughton, TEA Checklist of Ontario Moths (Supply date accessed here). For comments, questions or corrections, contact Alan.

Other Resources

The iNaturalist project Moths of Ontario, organized by David Kaposi, is worth joining as it helps you to connect with other people with a special interest in Ontario moths.

The TEA's Ontario Moth Atlas provides maps of 250 of the best-known Ontario macromoth species by 10K square, county, park, etc. Graphs of flight seasons are shown for any of these geographic units. The data includes 60,000 records drawn from iNaturalist and other sources.

The Moth Photographers Group provides a helpful introduction to moth families. Each family is illustrated with photos of sample species for you to identify. Clicking on the photo allows you to check your ID against the correct answer.