Lepidoptera of North America 15. Butterflies of southern California in 2018: updating Emmel and Emmel's 1973 Butterflies of southern California

Abstract

It has now been more than 44 years since Thomas C. Emmel and John F. Emmel's The Butterflies of Southern California was published on November 30, 1973. The Emmels' provided a history of previous leaders in gathering information on the fauna of southern California butterflies, information on life zones and butterfly habitats and season progression. They also listed areas little visited that needed more field study. They covered 167 species and an additional 64 subspecies or segregates (many of those have since been elevated to species status or removed as segregates for not being all that distinct since 1973) known from southern California based on the boundaries they set and provided a list of rarely recorded or doubtful records, ten color plates, and literature cited. More than 100 contributors helped provide them information and observations for the project. What about now? At the start of 2018 with the addition of some added territory in this work, those numbers have increased. In this updated study, I will include all of San Luis Obispo County, extend the northern boundaries about 20 to 25 miles north in the Sierra Nevada (the Kern Plateau was excluded in the 1973 publication, possibly because that area was still poorly known at that time) and Greenhorn Mountains to include part of the Sierra Nevada on the Kern Plateau north to the Sherman Pass Road as the north boundary and extend territory in Inyo County north to Lone Pine and Whitney Portal which is the northern limit of the Mojave Desert. Emmel & Emmel had included the southern part of Death Valley National Monument (now a National Park) in their work. That now brings us to 209 species (five subspecies are now given species status herein) and 160 subspecies or segregates.