How can I identify common insects? Is there a website for this?
by 
Jackie Klos
ANSWERS: 3
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You can try Online Insect Identification provided by the Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Unit of West Virginia University Extension Service. http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/identify/insectid.htm
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Another good website to check out is http://www.bugguide.net/, which has a plethora of images to aid in identification. Also, the dichotomous key at http://www.ex.ac.uk/bugclub/bugid.html is good for taking the identification down to the order of insect but not to family. For this website, however, you may need to learn a little entomological terminology (e.g., haltere, tarsi, elytra), but that shouldn't be a major hindrance. http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/compendium/ has a good overview of the different orders once you key it out that far. Otherwise, you may want to find a beginning entomology textbook with a dichotomous key. Some books that might help you are the Photographic Atlas of Entomology and Guide To Insect Identification (James Castner) and the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders (Lorus Milne). Good luck!
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Bugguide.net is a good website, however to narrow down the insect to a specific species is sometimes only able to be done in a lab where DNA testing is available. Any entomoligist can at least tell you what order your insect is in. Their knowledge is more generalized, there are currently about 800,000 species of insects currently found. Most entomoligists spend their entire career learning about insects in a specific order, or genus. But for the most part narrowing down an insect to its specific species is rarely needed. Because insects within that same order or genus typically exibit the same traits and habits.
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