Participants have now adopted 115 survey blocks (77/184 priority blocks and 38 non-priority blocks). In 2024 we had 90 observers report 96 butterfly species in 1,973 complete checklists comprising 7,590 butterfly occurrence records to e-Butterfly.org, our official atlas data portal. Overall, we now have over 3,800 checklists comprising more than 14,000 butterfly occurrence records! Additionally, 1,161 observers reported 7,590 butterfly photo-vouchers to the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist in 2024 for a total of 13,618 butterfly records.
We’d also like to thank those of you who have helped us with crowd-sourced identifications on eButterfly and iNaturalist. We’d love to have as many folks looking at records as possible to help root out any identification issues or other data problems with checklists and occurrence records.
We have not fully explored the data yet, but we have already had some noteworthy findings. Some species’ ranges have expanded or contracted, like Wild Indigo Duskywing’s dramatic expansion or the possible extirpation of Silvery Checkerspot, which was last observed in 2005. There have also been new natural history findings and the discovery of two new species for the state.
In July, Terri Armata found a vagrant Sachem Skipper in Wilmington and a few weeks later she found a fresh, male Zabulon Skipper in an unmowed field full of Red Clover just outside of Bennington. This marked the 119th butterfly species known from Vermont. You can explore the checklist and individual species accounts at the atlas website.
Generally, our goal is to record 40 or more species on each priority block before the end of the 5-year survey. There are just over 40 species that we believe are reasonably easy to find on just about any block in Vermont with reasonable effort throughout the growing season.
With 184 priority blocks scattered across Vermont, we have a lot of work to do over the next three years. The good news is we have at least one butterfly record from 150 of the 184 priority blocks. But only a small percentage of them (10%) have 30 or more species recorded on them so far. We have a lot of priority blocks (red on map) that need to be adopted and fully surveyed over the next three years. Recruit your friends or talk to your local library or nature center to schedule a Butterfly Atlas workshop with our biologists.
You can help even if you don’t adopt a block. You can be a “block buster”. Pick a day and travel to an under-surveyed priority block and spend the day surveying butterflies. We will have a few interns joining our biologists next year to help with the block-busting efforts too!
