Sphingidae

CATE Sphingidae aims to produce an interactive taxonomic monograph of the hawkmoth family, Sphingidae.
You will find a comprehensive catalogue of the whole family, with illustrations and diagnoses of almost all known species, that will enable you to identify them with confidence.
Our further aim is to encourage the wider community to become involved with the project, share their information and images, and even propose changes to the classification that will be peer reviewed for possible inclusion in a new version of the classification.

Introducing hawkmoths

The hawkmoths form a family of some 1400 species of small to very large moths occurring on all continents except Antarctica. They are most often observed, elegant and streamlined, hovering in front of flowers feeding, or as large caterpillars with a conspicuous horn at the rear end. As a result, hawkmoths are a popular group with both amateur and professional naturalists.
For more about the biology and classification of hawkmoths, click here .

Introducing CATE

CATE stands for Creating a Taxonomic E-science. It is a 3-year project, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with the goal of developing the technologies to put not only the product of taxonomic research onto the web, but the process, involving the user community, to propose and review changes.
One animal group (the Sphingidae) and one plant group (the arum lilies, Araceae - you can find them at CATE-Araceae) were selected to test the feasibility of the approach. To read more about the CATE project go to the CATE-project website.

The CATE Sphingidae team

The team responsible for providing the information for this version of CATE Sphingidae includes scientists at the Natural History Museum, London and a software developer based at the University of Oxford.
Click here for details of the team.

How to get involved

To be successful CATE needs the active involvement of the user community to provide data, propose taxonomic changes, review proposals, and join an editorial or advisory group. We warmly invite you to join.
There are various ways to get involved with CATE Sphingidae. You can join the mailing list, contribute to the wiki, register as a user, or e-mail Ian Kitching or Campbell Smith of the CATE-Sphingidae team.

Navigation

Navigation of the Sphingidae Classification: A click on a term in the 'Classification' menu will open the child taxa of this term as well as the taxon panel for this term. To find a taxon panel you can also click on 'Taxonomy' above the search field, enter a term and search.