Resources
Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor's famous Monarch tagging and observing program.
Calculates air temperature, dew point temperature, or relative humidity when you know any two of these three values. It calculates values using the August-Roche-Magnus approximation, which implies that saturation vapor pressure changes approximately exponentially with temperature under typical atmospheric conditions.
A global study of wildlife migration - most notably, Monarch Butterflies. Report your observations!
Monthly maps of drought conditions in the contiguous United States as measured by the Palmer Drought Severity Index, Palmer Hydrological Drought Index, Palmer Modified Drought Index, and Palmer Z-Index (Palmer, 1965) are provided for January 1900—March 2021. Animations of any set of monthly maps for any period desired can be viewed by selecting the beginning and ending dates of interest. These maps are provided by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Here’s a guide on how to build your own butterfly garden. Also includes a list of plants to grow, and other things to do to attract butterflies to the garden. This is a page from BillyOH/Kybotech Limited, a garden building and equipment supply company located in the United Kingdom.
HYSPLIT is a model for computing simple air parcel trajectories, as well as simulating complex transport, dispersion, chemical transformation, and deposition of airborne material. One common application is to determine the origin of air masses and to follow how they move over time. By knowing the history of a moving air mass, one can figure out where it originally came from. This is very useful in tracking migrating butterflies and other organisms that often take advantage of favorable winds to carry them long distances to new locations.
Climate Reanalyzer is a platform for visualizing climate and weather datasets. The site is coded and maintained by Dr. Sean Birkel through support from the Climate Change Institute and School of Earth and Climate Sciences of the University of Maine, and partial support from the National Science Foundation.
Information on El Niño and La Niña from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Monthly mean SOI values from January 1876 to the present day. Bureau of Meteorology, Australia.
Assesses information relevant to understanding the risk of human-induced climate change.
Iowa State University Extension Climatologist Elwynn Taylor's home page.
The Rieman Index measures the tendency for warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to move northward into the eastern and midwestern U.S. Migrating butterflies and other insects often ride these moist winds northward in the spring.
This site provides a variety of Iowa and U.S. weather information.
Formerly Joint Agricultural Weather Facility. Includes daily, weekly, monthly, and percent normal monthly precipitation, as well as other weather data, for various regions of the world.
Similar interactive maps as the preceding site, with a different map projection.
Information on North American biological resources and species, including range maps.
A set of selected North American maps of surface and 850 mb height conditions for the previous 14 days. Maps are for 21 hours Greenwich Mean Time (3 p.m. Central Standard Time) each day. We maintain this archive in cooperation with the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
Daily, monthly, and other interactive maps of precipitation in the United States.
Hourly weather maps for the U.S., southern Canada, and northern Mexico. Also includes U.S. local forecasts and current conditions.
Hourly weather data and hourly colored contour maps of temperature, dewpoint, winds, and sea-level pressure are among the wide variety of information on this site. Region covered includes the U.S., southern Canada, and northern Mexico. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Hourly weather conditions for the past 24 hours, forecasts, watches, and warnings from your local National Weather Service office, anywhere in the United States. Also gives hourly weather conditions for the past 24 hours for selected locations world-wide.
The leading organization in wildlife conservation and endangered species.
From the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). An interesting presentation of the scientific method by counterexample. Some pitfalls to avoid when doing research or anything else....
A detailed discussion of the scientific method, its history, and how to apply it when you are doing research...or seeking to answer other questions that come up in your daily life.
A website promoting conservation of the European stinging nettle, Urtica dioica. Includes nettle lore and promotes "Be Nice to Nettles Week."
This page describes butterfly metamorphosis and also links to an extensive collection of butterfly information, including pages with butterfly crafts and games for kids.
Website of the ISU Department of Entomology.
Sergey G. Popov's population research page for butterflies in southwestern Ukraine.
Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor's famous Monarch tagging and observing program.
Developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota to collect long-term data on larval monarch populations and milkweed habitat.
An international nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity through conservation of invertebrates.
A membership-based not-for-profit organization working to increase public enjoyment and conservation of butterflies in North America.
International society devoted to study and appreciation of butterflies and moths.
One of the most complete and comprehensive websites on Lepidoptera on the Internet.
An online resource devoted to North American insects, spiders and their kin, offering identification, images, and information.
eButterfly is an international, data-driven project dedicated to butterfly biodiversity, conservation, and education. Report and track butterfly sightings, share your sightings and photos with others, and contribute to science and conservation.
We now have a Vanessa Migration Project page on iNaturalist. org for reporting sightings of Red Admirals, Ladies, and other Vanessa species. If you often report observations to iNaturalist, or would like to post photos with your butterfly reports, our iNaturalist project page is another way for you to share your observations with us.
A site and community for reporting personal observations of any plant or animal species in the world, including butterflies. Explore and share your observations from the natural world.
Butterflies and Moths of North America is an ambitious effort to collect, store, and share species information and occurrence data.