|North American Insects and Spiders / Tree Encyclopedia|
Explore over 5,000 macro photographs of live insects and spiders.
Our tree encyclopedia offers diagnostic photos for over 450 tree species.
|Try our new, updated website|
|Class
|North American Insects and Spiders / Tree Encyclopedia|
Explore over 5,000 macro photographs of live insects and spiders.
Our tree encyclopedia offers diagnostic photos for over 450 tree species.
|Try our new, updated website|
|Class Arachnida / Order Araneae: Spiders are the largest group of arachnids. They are easily recognized by their eight legs, and there are few creatures great or small that elicit such irrational fear in mankind. The vast majority of spiders are completely harmless and offer beneficial services, chief of which is keeping the burgeoning insect population in check. |
Spider Index | Spider Main | Orb Web | Nursery Web | Cobweb
|Order Hymenoptera: Bees, Wasps, & Ants belong to this large order, which also includes sawflies. Most species are solitary, but some, such as the domestic honeybee, exhibit a complex social structure in which exist sterile female workers and fertile male and female royalty. |
Bees & Wasps Index
|Order Coleoptera: Beetles are the dominant form of life on earth: one of every five living species is a beetle. Coleoptera is the largest order in the animal kingdom, containing a third of all insect species. There are about 300,000 known species worldwide, 30,000 of which live in North America. Beetles Index|
Trees are the longest-lived and largest organisms on Earth, and have been thriving for more than 370 million years. Today, they can be found almost everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara Desert. Trees are the climax species nearly everywhere; if land is left fallow, it eventually becomes host to trees. Explore over 3,000 large pictures in more than 450 species, with leaves, bark and form detailed. Trees Index | Crabapples | Nut Trees | Fruit Trees
|Order Lepidoptera: Butterflies are revered for their brightly colored wings and pleasing association with fair weather and flowers. Lepidoptera comprises at least 125,000 known species including 12,000 in America north of Mexico. Learn to identify many of the American Midwest's common species through large format pictures and natural histories.|
Butterfly Pictures | Butterfly Index | Moths | Moth Index | Skippers
|Order Lepidoptera: Moths. Unlike the butterflies, moths are usually nocturnal. Many moths and their caterpillars are major agricultural pests in large parts of the world, e.g. moths in the family Tineidae are commonly regarded as pests because their larvae eat fabrics, clothes and blankets made from natural fibers such as wool or silk; moths in the genus Farinalis feed on stored grain, flour, corn meal and other milled grain products. |
|Order Dictyoptera: Mantids and cockroaches. Mantids have triangular heads with huge compound eyes, long, thin bodies, four thin legs, and prominent forelegs held in the characteristic prayerful pose. The strong mouthparts can cut through even heavily armored heads of insects. Both genders use their exquisite camouflage and ability to remain motionless to lie in wait and ambush unwary prey, including small frogs, lizards, and even hummingbirds.|
|Order Diptera: Flies are prevalent in virtually all habitats, with over 16,000 species in North America. Flies are distinguished from all other insects in that they only have one pair of normal wings. Mouthparts are adapted for piercing, lapping and sucking fluids (often blood). Perhaps the world's most-famous fly, the mosquito, kills more humans than any other invertebrate disease vector. |
|Order Orthoptera: Grasshoppers, katydids and crickets have long, powerfully muscled hind legs that they use for jumping, large, flat-sided heads with big compound eyes and large chewing mouthparts. Grasshopper and cricket males are known for their musical sounds made when they rub together roughened portions of their wings or legs. |
|Order Hemiptera: True Bugs species number almost 5,000 in North America, and 40,000 worldwide. They have mouthparts formed into a beak, adapted for sucking plant juices or the liquefied insides of their prey.|
Suborder Auchenorrhyncha - Cicadas & Planthoppers
Suborder Sternorrhyncha - Aphids, scales, jumping plant lice
|Order Odonata: Dragonflies date back 300 million years, to the Carboniferous Period of the Paleozoic Era. These colorful, enchanting insects are revered second only to the butterflies in the popular psyche. Explore detailed close-up photographs of live, adult dragonflies photographed in the wild. 