Florida Museum’s McGuire Center of Lepidoptera digitization: Processes and recent products

Sunday, November 13, 2022

4:54 PM – 5:06 PM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 215/216

Presenting Author(s)

Taylor Pierson

Molecular Lab Manager
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida

Co-Author(s)

AC

Ana P. S. Carvalho (she/her/hers)

Postdoc
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
NH

Nicholas T. Homziak

Graduate student
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
KW

Keith Willmott

University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Akito Y. Kawahara

Associate Curator
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida

The Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity (MGCL) has been digitizing its extensive ~ 3 million specimens of Lepidoptera over the last 7 years. The MGCL digitization pipeline begins post-curation and includes imaging of the dorsal and ventral sides of Lepidoptera specimens along with label data. The MGCL also includes new accession number labels with each specimen for identification and entry into local and online databases such as Microsoft Access and SCAN. Within the last several years, digitization has focused on the underwing moths (Catocala: Erebidae), Acraea (Nymphalidae), Actias (Saturniidae), and the satyr butterfly subtribe Euptychiina. This presentation will show how these data have been used for research projects pertaining to moth wing color, transparency, and biogeography. Digitization efforts at the MGCL have been steadily increasing, leading to increased accessibility of these specimen data for systematic, morphological, ecological, and conservation research.