With the ID-a-thon underway, I was wondering if people wanted to share their resources for making identifications. I know that iNat staff will be sharing resources throughout the month, but I’d love to see what other people have created or found that is helpful for their groups of organisms.
I have many more ideas in drafts. Maybe since I’ve ID’ed so much this year, for the ID-a-thon I’ll focus on wrapping up some more ID resources for crabs and barnacles.
This is a resource for those of us whose ID-a-thon (and daily iNat participation) tends towards specialty IDs: I am an inveterate user and supporter of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org). For anyone wanting to dive into an ID challenge by examining early literature and published imagery of a species, this is the best resource I’ve found on the internet. Caveat: It’s not a useful portal to recently published research, but there are other resources for that (e.g. Google Scholar, etc.).
I made this guide for identifying US and Canadian ticktrefoils using parts commonly photographed by iNatters (a combo of distinguishing the two similar genera and identifying the species in the smaller genus): Identifying Hylodesmum and distinguishing it from Desmodium
(still working on an accompanying Desmodium species ID guide…)
Gallformers.org helps you identify galls in North America by way of its host plant. Please note that this database is a work in progress. You may run across a host or gall forming species that is not included yet.
I recommend using section (white oaks, red oaks, live oaks) on the Identify page when your host is a species of oak tree. There are a lot of galls found on multiple species within the same section. If you use genus (Quercus), you will get entirely too many results. If you use species, that particular species of oak may not be listed as a host. If you find a missing host-gall connection, please let me know (on iNat, not here on the forum). I’m one of the people that can add it in. I added Quercus laurifolia as a host for Polystepha pilulae and Polystepha pustuloides a few days ago.
The database also includes undescribed species of galls. For example there are only 3 species of Taxodiomyia (baldcypress gall midges) on iNat, but you can find those and an additional 6 species that are undescribed on Gallformers’ website. If you find an observation of an undescribed gall species, you can use the observation field “Gallformers Code” to record which one you think it is. The webpage will also show the where the undescribed species is thought to be taxonomically. So you can use the genus or family listed as your identification. For example you would ID this baldcypress gall as genus Taxodiomyia and enter the Gallformers Code “t-distichum-starburst-gall”. For this Boltonia gall the genus is unknown so you would ID as family Cecidomyiidae and then use the Gallformers Code “b-diffusa-stem-swelling”.
If a caterpillar is horizontally oriented, I am showing a view from the side (lateral view) and the caterpillar’s head is almost always at the right. If you are observing caterpillars, these 2 views are usually the most helpful to document.
Thanks for sharing, I love that it was hand-drawn! I tried using it for some of my observations, and I’m learning that I really need to be taking lateral view photos.
Similar to Gallformers, there is an European equivalent called “Plant Parasites of Europe” that covers leafminers, galls, and fungi on plants :). I use it pretty often in Germany these days and you can also look up by host plant, like Gallformers. It’s available in English :)
Also, when I got into identifying North American moth species, I would use the Moth Photographers Group website (https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/WalkThroughIndex.shtml) to look through the different moth families (they have beautiful photo plates), which you can then filter by region to look for matches. Each species page has links to other websites for more species information e.g. BugGuide, E. H. Strickland Museum (Albertaa) and Pacific Northwest Moths
Thanks! Drawing it really was the easiest way to cram a bunch of caterpillars into a small space and strip out some of the distracting things in photos (backgrounds, variable color patterns, etc.). If people have basic drawing skills, I’d definitely recommend considering drawing for guides, especially if you’re going for more of an overview and not species-level IDs.
And it looks like you’re doing a pretty good job at taking lateral photos for your caterpillars! And a lot of times that kind of 45-degree angle from above shot can get enough of the dorsal and lateral views to work too :D
I’m glad you’re feeling inspired! My guide definitely does not work worldwide, so I wouldn’t let that stop you from doing a caterpillar guide. For one thing, there are a lot of cool tropical and/or non-American families that aren’t featured because they just don’t occur in my region. And even when the family occurs elsewhere, there can be very different-looking species in different areas. I was originally going to say my guide applied to the whole Caterpillars of Eastern North America project area, but I decided pretty quickly that Mexico and Central America needed their own future guide because they have so much more diversity. I still need to find the time to give making one for that region a try.
