Use of curatorial data bases as an element to reconstruct taxonomic knowdlege: an example with Mexican papilionids and pierids (Insecta: Lepidoptera)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the chronology of the information on papilionid and pierid butterflies of Mexico, as well as the patterns of collection and who were the most active collectors from a curatorial databases and bibliography. The database has record of 40 752 records of individuals housed in 12 museums and/or recorded in 145 bibliographic sources. The relevance of this work is to highlight the amplitude of curatorial databases for the reconstruction of the historical knowledge of a biological group, taking Mexican papilionid and pierid butterflies as an example.