Insects


A guide to Australian insect families (from CSIRO) can be found at:
http://anic.ento.csiro.au/insectfamilies/

Daley, A. & Ellingsen, K., 2012. Insects of Tasmania: An online field guide

A useful introduction to Insects, visit:
http://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/documents/9362/invertebrate_guide.pdf

A diagram of Insect morphology illustrating terminology with legend of body parts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_morphology#/media/File:Insect_anatomy_diagram.svg

A diagram of an insect illustrating terminology based on a worker ant, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaster_(insect_anatomy)#/media/File:Scheme_ant_worker_anatomy-en.svg

Photographing insects

There are two main ways to photograph insects with a camera: using a macro close-up lens or a zoom lens. If the insect tolerates your getting very close, then you can use the macro lens. For example, some moths will remain quite still when approached, believing they are camouflaged and invisible. However, many insects, especially those that can fly, will move away when you approach. This is especially true for insects like butterflies and dragonflies. So a good zoom lens is very useful for photographing many insects. If you are using a smartphone, then use a macro lens or a macro attachment. E.g. OlloClip for iPhone. If you want to have an insect identified to species then clear photographs are usually needed because minute parts of the anatomy may need to be checked. It is valuable to take several photos from various angles so that these anatomical details can be seen. Many insects are have particular plants that they feed on, and they can be identified more easily when the associated plant is known. So if the insect is resting or feeding on a plant, take note of what the plant is or ensure that a photo shows the plant clearly.

Announcements

16 Mar 2025

Hello NatureMaprs!Three new priority species lists of exotic freshwater and terrestrial invertebrates, and vertebrates in the ACT have been added to NatureMapr. Uploading records of these species to N...


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Discussion

DiBickers wrote:
23 min ago
This one is still sitting in the Unidentified List, so I’ll Re-Verify it so it’ll move😊

Lamprima aurata
DiBickers wrote:
25 min ago
This one is still sitting in the Unidentified List so I’ll re-Verify it so it’ll move😊

Lamprima aurata
DiBickers wrote:
43 min ago
This is still sitting in the Unidentified Listing for some reason, so hopefully if I re-Verify it, it’ll move to the right area😊Yep, that got it!!

Castiarina sexguttata
DiBickers wrote:
1 hr ago
Looks like this is a second taxon category setup for Formosia speciosa. I’m just transferring this sighting back to the original listing so the duplicate taxon category can be removed😊

Formosia (Euamphibolia) speciosa
DiBickers wrote:
1 hr ago
Looks like this is a second taxon category setup for Formosia speciosa. I’m just transferring this sighting back to the original listing so the duplicate taxon category can be removed😊

Formosia (Euamphibolia) speciosa
803,396 sightings of 21,778 species from 13,579 contributors
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