Regional Checklists


Users can select any state or province of Canada, the U.S., or Mexico. They can also select any country from North or Central America. The pattern of internal navigation (condensed and expanded checklists, alphabetical index of valid names and synonyms) will not change, but the content will reflect the user's selection. At present the default setting for geography is "North and Central America". Any other geographical subset must be set by the user and will remain in force for the session unless changed. Once a region has been selected all indices will remain set to that choice until the user resets the regional selection. This is done by means of a "session cookie". This cookie contains only information about users' selections while at the site. No information on user or computer identity is saved or sent to any other computer or server. Unfortunatly, it is not possible at this time for users to mix and match localities and totally customize regional lists. This will eventually be added, but requires more complex programming.


In the past users have been limited to 3 separate checklists for access to information on species: Canada and the U.S., the Southeastern U.S., and Mexico. These tabs still function, although they will eventually be phased out. Clicking on the main tab or drop down options will automatically reset the geographic selection.


There are several "predefined" regions that also may be chosen (Canada and the U.S. / North American regions). These were chosen on the basis of broad ecological / biogeographical regions of interest. Due to the structure of the database from which records are summarized, regions are defined on the basis of political boundaries. Unfortunately ecological-biogeographical regions do not correspond with political entities. These regions were chosen to include specific biogeographical elements with the smallest numbers of extraneous species. These regions are defined below. If there is enough interest, new regions can be defined and added.


The information shown on this website is derived from a large database which is constantly being expanded, corrected, and maintained. For all intents and purposes the information on species from Canada, the continental U.S. and Mexico is complete. The database includes all published data on distribution, hosts, and synonymy for all native and exotic species for these countries. Complete information on distribution, hosts, and synonymy from outside the U.S., Canada and Mexico is included for introduced species. All localities within the New World have been georeferenced and are shown on maps for each species. Localities outside the New World are listed, but not mapped. A significant amount of information from Hawaii is included in the database and available here but no attempt has been made to ensure that it is complete. Likewise, information (localities, synonymy, hosts) is not complete for Central America, even though the list of species is complete.


In the short term the tabs for Canada and the U.S., the southeastern U.S., and Mexico will remain available separately. Eventually these will disappear because the same information is available here.


Click on headers to expand selection menus


Canada and the U.S.  


Mexico  


Central America