Dai vertebrati agli invertebrati: un progetto di indagine sulle farfalle diurne del Veneto

A collaborative project has been launched to investigate the geographic distribution and the conservation status of butterflies (Rhopalocera) in Veneto. New records, unpublished data obtained from collections and published information will be integrated in a georeferenced database. The basic methodological approach and the experience of the atlas-projects carried out on vertebrates in Veneto during the last decades will be extended and adapted to this invertebrate group. Aims, methods and organizational structure of the project are presented and compared with those of vertebrate surveys to highlight common critical aspects (unequal exploration of the area, heterogeneous data quality, effects of publishing data on rare species) and specific problems (as collaborative aptitude of the volunteers, unstable taxonomy and nomenclature, limits of the identification tools, capture and collecting of specimens, need for the examination of available collections, difficulty in detecting reproduction, cryptic species).