Dispar
The Online Journal of Lepidoptera
ISSN 2056-9246
The Online Journal of Lepidoptera
ISSN 2056-9246
dispar was started in October 2014 as a spin-off from the UK Butterflies website. With an ever-growing membership contributing a large number of posts on the UK Butterflies forums, the time came for a new vehicle to be put in place that would allow significant contributions to be shared more widely. This includes formal cataloging of articles so that they may be located by anyone looking to research a particular aspect of Lepidoptera.
dispar is Latin (dis-par) for 'unequal' or 'unalike' and seemed appropriate for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is used as the specific name of both a butterfly (the Large Copper, Lycaena dispar) and a moth (the Gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar), reflecting the scope of the Lepidoptera and therefore the scope of this website (in both cases, the name is used to reflect the difference in appearance between male and female). Secondly, the term could also describe the relationship between the UK Butterflies website and the dispar website, the latter reflecting the "publishing arm" of the former, which are dissimilar in terms of their content and appearance but are complementary.
With an active interest in entomology at both amateur and professional levels, Mark was elected a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London in 1988. With a passion for invertebrate conservation and education, Mark, a former editor of the Sussex Butterfly Report, was an active committee member of the Amateur Entomologists' Society (AES) for many years. He tries to spend as much time as possible in the field and is passionate about conservation of the natural world and promoting its importance to the younger generation.
Peter is a keen amateur Lepidopterist who is best known for creating and managing the UK Butterflies website whose goal is "Building a Community of Responsible Butterfly Enthusiasts". He has a particular interest in the butterflies of the British Isles, and has spent a considerable amount of time studying the various subspecies and forms, together with the immature stages. He is a past chairman of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight branch of Butterfly Conservation and is a Member of the Royal Entomological Society of London. Peter also acts as dispar's webmaster.
Guy now lives in the Swiss Alps, but his passion for butterflies began in Suffolk, in the UK. He has been a member of the UK Butterflies team for many years and has a particular interest in the butterflies of Europe.
Vince is a keen amateur observer of butterflies of the British Isles with a special interest in immature stages and behaviour. He is on the team at UK Butterflies and is a member of the Sussex Branch of Butterfly Conservation.
Kate is Head of Archives and Library at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and is responsible for all of the library and archival collections at the museum - a unique collection of natural history books, journals and archives. A significant focus for Kate is the cataloging of the collections, whether this is modern or antiquarian material. Kate is particularly keen on developing the collection through digitising relevant works and improving access in general.
David is a Research Ecologist working mainly on butterflies and ants with a particular interest in phenology as a tool to monitor climate change and its impacts. He is the Project Manager of the Large Blue Re-introduction Programme and is contracted by both the University of Oxford and Butterfly Conservation. He is delighted that butterflies have become so popular and has been a regular follower of the UK Butterflies website which he finds an important resource for his work. He is a great believer in 'Citizen Science' and looks forward to reading articles contributed to dispar.