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Background We compiled a database of firefly species records from the Atlantic Forest hotspot in Brazil and made it available at GBIF. Data were gathered from literature and from several key entomological collections, including: Coleção entomológica Prof. José Alfredo Pinheiro Dutra (DZRJ/UFRJ) and Coleção do Laboratório de Ecologia de Insetos from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (CLEI/UFRJ); Coleção Entomológica do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (CEIOC); Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZSP); Coleção Entomológica Pe. Jesus Santiago Moure from Universidade Federal do Paraná (DZUP/ UFPR); and Coleção Entomológica from Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (UFRPE). This database represents the largest contribution to a public repository of recorded occurrences from Neotropical fireflies. New information This dataset shows the occurrence and abundance of firefly species in the Atlantic Forest hotspot. Firefly species endemic to this biome are also present and considered in the study. These data can assist scientific and societal needs, by supporting future research projects and conservation decision-making., Permission to undertake research in the protected areas mentioned in this paper was granted by the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade, Ministério do Meio Ambiente, Brazil. We also thank the staff at Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca and our dear friend André Luiz Diniz Ferreira (PEPB). We thank the staff at the Parque Nacional da Serra dos Órgãos and Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu for supporting our fieldwork and the staff at Laboratório de Ecologia de Insetos/UFRJ and Laboratório de Entomologia/UFRJ for field assistance. We thank all the curators of DZRJ, DZUP, MZSP, CLEI, UFRPE and CEIOC, for their support during our visits to their respective institutions and Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia for supporting the visitation to the collections. We would like to thank SIBBr for supporting our dataset and to provide precious technical information to provide the firefly assessments online. S.V. was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES). We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).