Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Esther Kioko (kiokoesther08@gmail.com)
Academic editor: Martin Wiemers
Received: 30 Jan 2020 | Accepted: 19 Mar 2020 | Published: 02 Apr 2020
© 2020 Esther Kioko, Alex Musyoki, Augustine Luanga, Mwinzi Kioko, Esther Mwangi, Lawrence Monda
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Kioko E, Musyoki AM, Luanga A, Kioko MD, Mwangi EW, Monda L (2020) Swallowtail butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) species diversity and distribution in Africa: The Papilionidae collection at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya. Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e50664. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e50664
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Species data from the Museum collections have been shown to be of great value as a tool for prioritising conservation actions in Africa (
The swallowtail butterflies collection at the National Museums of Kenya was digitised from 2017–2019 and this paper presents details of the Papilionid collection at the Zoology Department, NMK, Nairobi, Kenya.
The collection holds 7,345 voucher specimens, consisting of three genera and 133 species. The collection covers the period between 1850 to 2019.
The distribution of the swallowtail butterflies, housed at the NMK, covers East Africa with 88%, Central Africa (6%), Western Africa (4%) and Southern Africa (2%).
Swallowtail butterflies, Papilionidae, species diversity, distribution, Africa, National Museums of Kenya, Kenya
Butterflies carry out essential ecosystem services which are necessary for human and environmental health. Butterflies are amongst the greatest number of flower visitors (
To create a freely accessible online resource for users.
Assessment of Lepidoptera Pollinator Species Diversity Data in East Africa
Data mining from the National Museums of Kenya collection and additional field data from the Taita Hills ecosystem that forms the northernmost Eastern Arc Mountains was carried out by Esther N. Kioko, Alex M. Musyoki, Augustine Luanga, Duncan Mwinzi and others. Bioinformatics support for the data to be accessed online was provided by Esther W. Mwangi and Lawrence Monda.
The project is supported by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation, USA
Papilionidae specimens housed at the NMK Invertebrate collection are as a result of multiple field expeditions and research projects. Most of the specimens lack information on the sampling protocol and, in case a certain method was used, then it was not indicated on the specimen label. The specimens were first catalogued and pinned; they were then preserved by drying in an oven.
Once a specimen was brought to the invertebrate collection, taxa experts revised the associated metadata i.e. species name (taxonomy) and locality. The geographical coordinates that were lacking, as is the case with old museum specimens, were obtained using a georeferencing webservice GEOLocate (
The digitised swallowtail butterflies voucher specimens are all from Africa with East Africa at 88%, Central Africa (6%), Western Africa (4%) and Southern Africa (2%) as shown in Fig.
There are 7,345 Papilionidae voucher specimens that have been digitised and published in GBIF through the National Museums of Kenya's Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) (
The dates of the digitised papilionid collection ranged from April 1850 to May 2019. The voucher specimens were collected throughout the year with the highest collection numbers being in August with a record of 1,148 specimens, while the fewest being in November with 390 specimens, as shown in Fig.
This resource is a digitised format of data on the occurrence of swallowtail butterfly species, housed in the Invertebrate Zoology Section, Zoology Department, National Museums of Kenya.
Column label | Column description |
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occurrenceID | An identifier for the Occurrence (as opposed to a particular digital record of the occurrence). |
type | The nature or genre of the resource. |
language | Language of the resource. |
institutionCode | The name (or acronym) in use by the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record. |
collectionCode | The name, acronym, coden or initialism identifying the collection or dataset from which the record was derived. |
basisOfRecord | The specific nature of the data record. |
catalogNumber | An identifier (preferably unique) for the record within the dataset or collection. |
individualCount | The number of individuals represented, present at the time of the Occurrence. |
organismQuantity | A number or enumeration value for the quantity of organisms. |
organismQuantityType | The type of quantification system used for the quantity of organisms. |
year | The four-digit year in which the Event occurred, according to the Common Era Calendar. |
month | The ordinal month in which the Event occurred. |
day | The integer day of the month on which the Event occurred. |
higherGeography | A list (concatenated and separated) of geographic names less specific than the information captured in the locality term. |
continent | The name of the continent in which the Location occurs. |
countryCode | The standard code for the country in which the Location occurs. |
locality | The specific description of the place. |
verbatimElevation | The original description of the elevation (altitude, usually above sea level) of the Location. |
verbatimCoordinateSystem | The spatial coordinate system for the verbatimLatitude and verbatimLongitude or the verbatimCoordinates of the Location. |
decimalLatitude | The geographic latitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a Location. |
decimalLongitude | The geographic longitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a Location. |
geodeticDatum | The ellipsoid, geodetic datum or spatial reference system (SRS) upon which the geographic coordinates given in decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude as based. |
georeferencedBy | A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations who determined the georeference (spatial representation) for the Location. |
georeferencedDate | The date on which the Location was georeferenced. |
scientificName | The full scientific name, with authorship and date information, if known. |
higherClassification | A list (concatenated and separated) of taxa names terminating at the rank immediately superior to the taxon referenced in the taxon record. |
kingdom | The full scientific name of the kingdom in which the taxon is classified. |
phylum | The full scientific name of the phylum or division in which the taxon is classified. |
class | The full scientific name of the class in which the taxon is classified. |
order | The full scientific name of the order in which the taxon is classified. |
family | The full scientific name of the family in which the taxon is classified. |
genus | The full scientific name of the genus in which the taxon is classified. |
specificEpithet | The name of the first or species epithet of the scientificName. |
infraspecificEpithet | The name of the lowest or terminal infraspecific epithet of the scientificName, excluding any rank designation. |
taxonRank | The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the scientificName. |
nomenclaturalCode | The nomenclatural code (or codes in the case of an ambiregnal name) under which the scientificName is constructed. |
licence | A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. |
modified | The most recent date-time on which the resource was changed. |
references | A related resource that is referenced, cited or otherwise pointed to by the described resource. |
institutionID | An identifier for the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record. |
recordedBy | A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations responsible for recording the original Occurrence. |
eventDate | The date-time or interval during which an Event occurred. |
country | The name of the country or major administrative unit in which the Location occurs. |
Africa is home to a rich biodiversity of butterflies that provide critical ecosystem services. However, most ecosystems in the continent are facing threats, including land use change, over-exploitation, environmental pollution, invasive alien species and climate change amongst others. These threats are leading to biodiversity loss and the need for data evidence to support decision-making on biodiversity conservation is critical. This paper has addressed the current limited capacity in publishing and using Digital Accessible Knowledge (DAK) to provide information for decisions on biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. The papilionid occurrence data forms a crucial baseline data that can be used for monitoring biodiversity trends and providing information about conservation decision-making processes.
We acknowledge and thank the JRS Biodiversity Foundation for the financial support that has facilitated this work. We thank the NMK management for the support that was given to this work.
Esther Kioko conceived the study, collected field and collection data and wrote the manuscript; Alex Mutinda collected field and collection data, analysed data, reviewed and edited the manuscript; A. Luanga and D. Mwinzi collected field and collection data; Esther Mwangi and Lawrence Monda provided bioinformatics skills, reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors contributed to the manuscript.