Eileen Schaeffer and Arden Jones’ guide to Sewanee’s butterflies is now available online (as a pdf at Issuu.com). Eileen and Arden are both rising seniors at Sewanee and have worked on this guide for the last two years, collating photographs, information about host plants, and data about abundance. The end result is a fabulous review of the diversity of these beautiful animals. The guide is also available in hard copy at Lulu.com.

This is not the only lepidopteran project that Eileen and Arden have undertaken. Last summer they completed a survey of the butterflies of St Catherine’s Island, GA. This summer they have taken a step into the daunting world of moth identification and are studying the moths of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico.

Taking a break from butterfly surveys, St Catherine’s Island, GA. Eileen Schaeffer (left) and Arden Jones (right). Both are Environmental Studies majors: Ecology and Biodiversity for Eileen and Natural Resources for Arden.

I have also uploaded a very short checklist of the butterfly species found in Sewanee.

One of my favorites: the long-tailed skipper.

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” — Rabindranath Tagore