A MONA number (short for Moths of North America), or Hodges number after

Ronald W. Hodges Ronald William Hodges (August 7, 1934 – December 10, 2017), known as Ron, was an American entomologist and lepidopterist. Hodges was born on August 7, 1934, and was raised in Michigan. He was educated at Michigan State University, obtainin ...

, is part of a

numbering system There are many different numbering schemes for assigning nominal numbers to entities. These generally require an agreed set of rules, or a central coordinator. The schemes can be considered to be examples of a primary key of a database management s ...

for North American moths found north of Mexico in the Continental United States and Canada, as well as the island of Greenland. Introduced in 1983 by Hodges through the publication of ''Check List of the Lepidoptera of America North of Mexico'', the system began an ongoing numeration process in order to compile a list of the over 12,000 moths of North America north of Mexico. The system numbers moths within the same family close together for identification purposes. For example, the species ''

Epimartyria auricrinella ''Epimartyria auricrinella'' (goldcap moss-eater moth) is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae. It was described by Lord Walsingham. It is known from the eastern parts of the United States (from Maine to Michigan and sout ...

'' begins the numbering system at 0001 while ''

Epimartyria pardella ''Epimartyria pardella'' is a species of moth belonging to the Micropterigidae family. It was described by Walsingham, Lord Thomas de Grey, in 1880. Its wingspan is 10–11 mm with a metallic brown forewing featuring three distinctive gold ...

'' is numbered 0002. The system has become somewhat out of date since its inception for several reasons: # Some numbers no longer exist as the species bearing the number have been reclassified into other species. # Some species have been regrouped into a different family and their MONA numbers are out of order taxonomically. # New species have been discovered since the implementation of the MONA system, resulting in the usage of decimal numbers as to not disrupt the numbering of other species. Despite the issues above, the MONA system has remained popular with many websites and publications. It is the most popular numbering system used, largely replacing the older McDunnough Numbers system, while some published lists prefer to use other forms of compilation. The Moth Photographer's Group (MPG) at

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

actively monitors the expansive list of North American moths utilizing the MONA system and updates their checklists in accordance with publishings regarding changes and additions.

References

{{reflist Biological classification