Welcome to Archives of Western Palearctic Lepidoptera

Since our early childhood we have been observing and studying Lepidoptera.
In the 1960s-1970s, this also meant a lengthy search for information, articles, journals, books, colleagues and entomological associations that could help us delve into this wonderful world, looking for answers to our questions and continuous amazement about these wonderful creatures.

We experienced the pleasure of being considered, by random people passing by, as sympathetic nature lovers walking with a butterfly net.
Questions were asked about what we were doing and we were able to inform them about the butterflies and the surveys.
They often showed great interest about our research on butterflies.
For young amateur entomologists, there were many practical obstacles, such as the lack of the Internet, which greatly hampered access to literature and colleagues.
Gradually we discovered different entomological subjects and became particularly interested in taxonomy, systematics, speciation, faunistics, distribution, biogeography, rearing, morphometrics, biodiversity, ecology, evolutionary biology, phylogenetics, phylogeography, genetic diversity, macrophotography, scientific digital photography, ...
This passion is endless, every answer leads to new questions and opens up new areas of entomology and biology.

Nowadays, the access to data, literature and colleagues has changed in a good way although new obstacles have arisen.
During field work, an entomologist with a butterfly net is now regularly scolded.
Rich biotopes are disappearing at an ever faster rate due to various human activities.
Many administrative tasks are needed to make scientific research possible.
Scientific articles that should be available to everyone without any barriers gradually become more and more an expensive commercial product.
The geopolitical situation makes safe access to certain areas, countries or vast regions virtually impossible.

Since decades, we continue our personal research in the field, publish our results, collaborate on genetic research with several research laboratories and work on monitoring projects with multiple national authorities.
We hope that in this way we can contribute to answer longstanding entomological questions.

This website is a new extension of our current entomological activities.
On the one hand, our intention is to bring together complex original data and documents, to lower the barriers for the access to entomological research, and on the other hand, to offer new innovative research an independent, peer-reviewed and dynamic forum.

We hope that the website will trigger numerous reactions in order to improve our knowledge of the Western Palearctic Lepidoptera and to bring the highest possible consensus among the lepidopterist’s community to the many open questions about species, their ecology and distribution.
We hope therefore that the website will become a useful tool for everybody who is studying in depth the Lepidoptera of the Western Palearctic.

It is planned that the website will be updated and regularly expanded according to personal research, feedback, comments and new scientific publications.

As a first subject we launch the project, "A dynamic checklist of the Western Palearctic butterflies, hyperlinked to the original descriptions at species, genus and family level (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea)"
In this regard, we are very grateful to Luc Manil, Louis Diringer and Jean-Marc Gayman of the Association des Lépidoptéristes de France (ALF) for the publication of the introduction (url) to this first project.

Different new subjects are in development and all are intended to offer dynamic updates according to new scientific insights.
We also welcome your original research. It will be reviewed and if eligible it can be published online in "Archives of Western Palearctic Lepidoptera".
Knowing how diverse entomology is, we look forward to work together. Teamwork can make the dream work.

Looking forward to your comments, input, suggestions and research, Michel and Sylvain