The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity represents the largest collections-based research and education center in the world focused on butterflies and moths. The collections are taxonomically comprehensive and contain more than 10 million specimens, which are widely used by an ever-growing global community of students and scientists. The Center documents past and present patterns of biological diversity and forms the basis for research ranging from climate change and emerging agricultural pests, to evolution and biodiversity conservation.
Take a Video Tour of the McGuire CenterÂ
The Center also houses a large visitor gallery with public-facing laboratories and the Butterfly Rainforest, a flagship exhibit that showcases hundreds of free-flying butterflies from around the globe in a truly immersive nature experience.
Latest Research
Millennia-old mystery about insects and light at night gets a new explanation
At night in the Costa Rican cloud forest, Yash Sondhi and a small team of international scientists switched on a…
Florida wildflowers and pollinators get a boost with two grants
The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History was recently awarded two grants to help support pollinators in…
Akito Kawahara named director of McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity
The Florida Museum of Natural History has named Akito Kawahara as the new director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera…
See more Lepidoptera research…
McGuire Center News
Visiting Researchers
The McGuire Center was privileged to host visiting researchers in October and November 2023, through the Mr. Carl Wisler and…
Lepidoptera Conference at the McGuire Center
Two societies for studying Lepidoptera, the Southern Lepidopterists’ Society and the Association for Tropical Lepidoptera combined their annual meetings...
Student Projects in Ecuador
McGuire Center Curator Keith Willmott is a keen researcher of Neotropical butterfly systematics and has a long history of field…