The 79 known species and five casual species of butterflies found in Alaska are illustrated in full color. Each species entry includes information on geographic distribution, habitat, basic biology, flight period, diagnostic characters, and field behavior. A species index and plant index are included.
Kenelm Philip, 1931-2014, received his PhD in astronomy from Yale University. Although he was a faculty member of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska for ten years, he retired in 1975 to work full time on butterflies, his first love. Ken established the Alaska Lepidoptera Society in 1965. With the assistance of over 600 volunteer collectors, he amassed ~80,000 specimens, the second largest arctic/boreal collection of butterflies in the world (second only to the Canadian National Collection).
Clifford Ferris is a faculty member at the University of Wyoming, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering. In addition to being the author of several books in the field of electronics, he has written Butterflies of the Rocky Mountain States and has been a contributor to many books and monographs on the subject of Lepidoptera.