There are over 4000 known moth species in Iran. Moths (mostly nocturnal) and butterflies (mostly diurnal) together make up the taxonomic order Lepidoptera.
In 2023 the results of a 13-year megaproject about the Lepidoptera of Iran were produced as Lepidoptera Iranica.[1] It was published as a special issue of Integrative Systematics: Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History and provides a comprehensive overview of the Lepidoptera of Iran. It involved an international collaboration between 73 researchers, who reviewed published and unpublished data. The project was led and edited by Hossein Rajaei of the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany) and Ole Karsholt of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
The authors also added hundreds of new records from institutional and private collections. In total, 4,812 butterfly and moth species were documented as part of the project, including the first records of three families and 182 species for Iran. Four species new to science were discovered and several taxonomic changes were proposed. The special issue also provides a historical overview of lepidopterology in Iran, as well as an analysis of Iranian Lepidoptera and an estimate of the number of Lepidoptera species still to be discovered. Finally, a gazetteer of sampling localities is supplied.
The following list provides a subset of known moth species, which have been recorded in Iran. A complete list of Lepidoptera of Iran is included in the External links below.
