You will find a comprehensive catalogue of the whole Sphingidae family, with pages for all species and subspecies currently recognized in the literature. Many of these species and subspecies are illustrated and diagnoses provided to enable you to identify them with confidence.
Our further aim (now being implemented as part of the eMonocot project) 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.
This catalog was originally created as part of CATE --Creating a Taxonomic E-science. It was 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) were selected to test the feasibility of the approach.
There are still quite a few errors which we endeavour to fix as we become aware of them. Should you see anything that you think is wrong, then please contact Ian Kitching.
Likewise, if you see that we have overlooked a genus, species or subspecies, then please let us know, with a reference to the description, and we will add pages as soon as possible.
Finally, please be aware that the classification used, as represented by the taxon tree, reflects solely the current situation in the published literature. It should not be taken as an endorsement by the maintainer that he agrees with any particular taxonomic treatment.