About this site:

This site provides a handy guide to the butterflies of Ontario, with common names, scientific names, and other useful information.  Some species from Northern Ontario are missing, but I hope to add them in the future. Many of the species featured here can be found throughout North America.

Each butterfly species has its own page, and these pages are organized by subfamily and family.  If you're unfamiliar with the wide range of  butterflies found in our province, you might want to start at the Butterfly Families page.  This will give you an idea of how our butterflies are classified, but feel free to dive in anywhere and explore!

From each family page, you can click on the image of any species to get to the corresponding species page.

On most of the species pages, there's a link to the corresponding Butterflies of Canada page which provides additional descriptive information. 

 

Although this website can be used as an aid to butterfly identification, it is not intended as a replacement for a comprehensive field guide ( see references ).  It should be remembered that most species are variable, and can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from their close relatives (especially in  photographs). 

This site is not sponsored by or affiliated with any particular organization.  However, I did have help (see Acknowledgements ).

 

This is a work in progress, and will be updated as I get additional images.

Common/Scientific names and Taxonomical ordering aligns with: Jones, C.D.  2012. Checklist of Ontario Butterflies,  Hamilton Naturalists Club, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Ontario Nature. ( checklist is available from The Hamilton Naturalists Club ).  Note that species names may differ from those used on websites like iNaturalist, eButterfly, the Ontario Butterfly Atlas, etc.

All rights reserved.  Images and other content may not be reproduced without permission.