IMIS

Here it is published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes for each species: the scientific name, higher classification and taxon identifier (in the taxon core), the occurrence status, red list status and sources this is based on per country or Macaronesian island(group) (in the distribution extension), and the English vernacular name (in the vernacular name extension). Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/inbo/eurobutt-checklist/issues
We have released this dataset to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver. We would appreciate it if you follow the INBO norms for data use (https://www.inbo.be/en/norms-data-use) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don't hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via opendata@inbo.be.
This checklist describes the occurrence status of butterfly species in 42 European countries: Albania*, Andorra*, Austria*, Belarus*, Belgium*, Bosnia and Herzegovina*, Bulgaria*, Croatia*, Cyprus, Czech Republic*, Denmark*, Estonia*, Finland*, France*, Germany*, Greece*, Hungary*, Iceland, Ireland*, Italy*, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania*, Luxembourg*, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands*, North Macedonia*, Norway*, Poland*, Portugal, Romania*, Russia, Serbia*, Slovakia*, Slovenia*, Spain*, Sweden*, Switzerland*, Ukraine*, United Kingdom* and the 3 Macaronesian archipelagos with their 18 islands: Canary Islands (El Hierro, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, La Gomera, La Palma, Lanzorate, Tenerife), Azores (Corvo, Faial, Flores, Graciosa, Pico, Santa Maria, Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel, Terceira), and Madeira (Madeira, Porto Santo). National red list status is included for 33 countries (indicated with *), as well as for Europe and the European Union. There are four European countries without a national butterfly checklist that are therefore not included: Kosovo, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.
This checklist covers the 496 butterfly species of the superfamily Papilionoidea occurring in Europe according to Wiemers et al. (2018). Scientific names published in the source checklists and red lists that deviate from Wiemers et al. (2018) are mapped and indicated in occurrenceRemarks. As a result of lumping names, a limited number of species have multiple distributions in a single country.
For each of the 42 European countries, national species lists were compiled using the most recent literature and/or websites. These lists were checked by national experts (all authors of Maes et al. 2019) of the Butterfly Conservation Europe (BCE) consortium, a partnership organisation focused on the conservation of butterflies, moths and their habitats throughout Europe (http://www.bc-europe.eu). The species list of the Macaronesian islands (Tennent 2005) was updated using Vieira and Karsholt (2010) and Vieira (2017) for the Azores, and Báez and Oromí (2010) and Monasterio León et al. (2017) for the Canary Islands. We used locally published species lists and matched them with the most recent taxonomic knowledge and species distribution information as used in the newly updated list of European butterflies (Wiemers et al. 2018). In total, 496 species were considered as being part of the European butterfly fauna, including the Macaronesian archipelagos. 148 (30%) of these species are endemic to the European continent. Apart from national species lists, we also compiled all available information regarding national red lists. Such lists were available for 34 out of the 42 European countries. Some countries such as Germany, Russia and Spain also have red lists at sub-national level (i.e. Länder, provinces, counties), but when a national red list was available, we used the latter for further analysis. Belgium has separate red lists for the two administrative regions that are responsible for nature conservation: Flanders (northern Belgium; Maes et al. 2012) and Wallonia (southern Belgium; Fichefet et al. 2008) and does not have a national red list for the whole country. Therefore, we combined the regional red lists into a Belgian red list by (conservatively) taking the lowest extinction risk category of the two regions as the Belgian red list category. Russia has a relatively old national red list (Iliashenko and Iliashenko 2000; Danilov-Danilian 2001), but only four butterfly species are assessed as declining. We only used relatively recent red lists (≥ 2005), which excluded Russia (2001), reducing the number of countries with red list status included in this dataset to 33. The full reference for all included national checklists and red lists is available at https://github.com/inbo/eurobutt-checklist/blob/e7e63e6728dfbe4612def7d483e5a76b751f0290/data/raw/references.csv