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Index of Subjects
Index of Subjects --Apple-Mail-2-607049001 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Hi Dave and Nancy, others, re Dave's point, the real question is, what are the practical alternatives to identifying specimens, where there are large numbers of species as with many insects? There are a smallish number of professional taxonomists in Canada and USA, most/all of whom specialize in particular families or a bit higher, but their mandate is not to identify specimens for the public, and they do it as a favour even for other professionals who need an ID. So you are not going to get definitive specimen IDs to the bugs that Nancy or Jeannie turn up fairly regularly on this list, from them: they normally would require a number of pinned specimens sent to them first hand for meticulous checking, as Dave implies, but are normally too busy to spend much time on this, and then only for a directed reason. One alternative is to find a published key for the group, but these are often in academic journals or books that may not be accessible, or even exist, or be old and incomplete. But it is much worse than that. You will need to know or learn the names of the many cuticular plates and bristle types on the body, otherwise 'pilose episternum' won't mean anything as a fork in identification -- real hair shirt stuff. I agree with Nancy that I'd rather look at images. The other alternatives are several sites with images that you can fairly easily compare to your insect (very good for syrphids and deer flies in E. Canada, for instance), and for small easier groups like butterflies, there's the excellent and comprehensive Butterflies of NS site. After that, the wide-ranging BugGuide is actually excellent, and, as far as mistakes are concerned, it actually has a self-correcting process of review by insiders and outside professionals and collectors, though this is not instantaneous. It is possible just to browse BugGuide and look for a match to your specimen, but that's not the best way. If you really have little idea what something is, the trick is to join BugGuide (for free) and you then can upload 1-3 images of your bug (under the heading of 'insect for identification', or something like it). This then gets worked over preliminarily by someone there and if others in the system disagree, this is brought up as comments until the best guess at the ID is known; if the image is too poor or ambiguous, someone will say so. If you browse through a large group like I just did (syrphid flies, huge number of images), you will find a very few mis- sorts (that is, not syrphids). Not sure why that is, but if you open such an image it usually is identified correctly, as a non-syrphid. The refinement process happens because expert people regularly troll through images in their general area and supply one-liner suggestions on an ID -- you can regularly find the world expert on lower Brachycera's name on comments, and that of the w.e. on jumping bugs in another area, and the serious collectors are often just as good. The psychology is curious, that these people are prepared to spend a bit of of time browsing regularly through groups and offering corrections or confirmations, where they would take much more trouble, and much more time, with a small number of a pinned species on their desk. In the first case, they may feel that their professional reputation is not in question, but in the second, they will have to attach an ID tag bearing their name to the insect pin that defines what it is, so reputation is much more on the line. The best method is to join BugGuide then upload images for ID, and not just browse and look for occasional mistakes. Steve (Halifax) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > On Dave W's point: Many of the Internet based ID guides such as Bug > Guide do have limitations. But they often are fairly accurate and are > user friendly. I think they are great by providing an accessible guide > for people who are not experts, nor want to be. The more folks > interested in nature the more likely it is to be conserved. > Nancy On 9-Aug-13, at 9:21 PM, David & Alison Webster wrote: > Hi All, Aug 9, 2013 > I don't want to sound like a wet blanket but one should be > aware that both Bug Guide and images have limits; the truism that a > picture is worth a thousand words nonwithstanding. > > This Feb., I wondered what the oval 'shelters', that are made > of shredded White Pine inner bark, in which I have found Pytho > americanus Kirby are called and whether they are made by the larval > or adult stage. So I Googled Pytho and was pointed to a Bug Guide > image of Pytho americanus Kirby that did not remotely resemble the > genuine article. > > Recently I failed to ID an image of a very common fern that I > have know for 75 years and which I see just about everywhere in my > woodlot during the growing season. It was a perfectly good image > but it looked too green, too firm and too regular to be what it was. > > Nothing beats first-hand contact with the organism by unaided > eye, feel, hand lens or microscope as applicable. > > Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Angus MacLean > To: naturens > Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 4:41 PM > Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Colourful Caddisfly- correct ID? > > Great photo, Nancy. > > Your i.d. seems reasonable but take a look at Hesperophylax > designatus. > > Caddisflies must be difficult for even the experts to identify. > > Angus > > > Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2013 11:15:13 -0300 > > Subject: [NatureNS] Colourful Caddisfly- correct ID? > > From: nancypdowd@gmail.com > > To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca > > > > This caddisfly was attracted to the outside lights at L Torment, E > > Dalhousie, Kings Co this week. I identified it on Bug Guide. Does > > anyone know if this is the correct identity? > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/92981528@N08/9473217066/ > > > > The sand grain cases shown for this genus certainly look like the > ones > > I am used to seeing on the lakeshore. > > > > I did not realize adult Caddisflies could be so colourful. > > > > Nancy > > > > Sent from my iPhone > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2013.0.3392 / Virus Database: 3211/6563 - Release Date: > 08/09/13 --Apple-Mail-2-607049001 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charse