Identification Guide to Insect orders

Discover Life

and

Lucid


Technology

showcase


Geoff Norton
Matt Taylor
and
Kevin Thiele

University of Queensland
Australia

John Pickering
University of Georgia
USA












How many of these can you identify to order?
They're all in the guide. Try your skill as an entomologist.
Click on IDnature guide to start.

Discover Life | All Living Things | IDnature guides | Identification Guide to Insect orders
Overview

Lucid matrix key software allows you to build multi-media identification keys and to distribute them via CD and the web.  Discover Life has Web-based identification tools. Our goal here is to demonstrate how we can integrate these technologies. We are taking an identification key to insect orders, developed using the Lucid builder and converting it to an IDnature guide that we will make available through Discover Life. We hope that this partnership will lead to more experts building interactive keys that we can deliver both on CD's and via the Web. This joint effort began in August, 2003. Help us if you can, we still have millions of species to go!!!

Index
Kinds

The following orders are in the guide. Click on them to learn more or go to Insecta on Discover Life.

Archeognatha
Blattodea
Coleoptera
Collembola
Dermaptera
Diplura
Diptera
Embioptera
Ephemeroptera
Grylloblattodea
Hemiptera
Hymenoptera
Isoptera
Lepidoptera
Mantodea
Mecoptera
Megaloptera
Neuroptera
Odonata
Orthoptera
Phasmatodea
Phthiraptera
Plecoptera
Protura
Psocoptera
Siphonaptera
Strepsiptera
Thysanoptera
Thysanura
Trichoptera
Zoraptera

Index
About the Key to Insect Orders

Insects make up the vast bulk of species diversity on the planet. Many millions of insect species exist and entomologists have divided them into a manageable number of units called Orders. The members of each insect Order have arisen from a common ancestor, share similar structural characteristics and have certain biological attributes in common.

Not all insect Orders are equal in species number; some Orders have just a few hundred species while others have more than 100,000 species. The range of structural characteristics and biological features tends to be broader in the more species-rich Orders.

Predictions about the biology, behaviour and ecology of an insect can be made once you know its Order. But how can you know the Order to which an insect belongs? Insects can be identified in various ways. Comparing a specimen with a book of illustrations of identified insects is one way. Using a printed key is another way. This computer key combines the advantages of these methods and adds a new dimension of simplicity and power to the process of identification.

This simple key is designed to identify most common adult insects to Order. The key has been designed for use by advanced secondary students, beginning undergraduates and others interested in entomology. We have written the key so that students will learn about the structure and biology of insects while identifying them.

We have included three groups of arthropods in this key (Protura, Collembola and Diplura) that are closely related to insects.

How can you tell if an insect is an adult and can be identified using this key? That is a simple question without a simple answer. If your insect has fully-developed, functional wings then it is an adult. However, some adult insects have reduced, non-functional wings and others have no wings at all. In these cases the adult forms have fully developed genitalia at the apex of the abdomen.

Index
Acknowledgements

The 'Key to Insect Orders' was created at The University of Queensland, Department of Entomology. The Key has been based on the simplified keys to insect Orders found in Collecting, Preserving and Classifying Insects by E.C. Dahms, G.B. Monteith and S. Monteith (Queensland Museum, 1979), Worms to Wasps by M.S. Harvey and A.L. Yen (Oxford University Press, 1989) and A Field Guide to Insects in Australia by P. Zborowski and R. Storey (Reed Books, 1995).

Lucid Professional Demonstration Key (CD Based)
The University of Queensland.
© Copyright 2000.
www.lucidcentral.com

Discover Life | All Living Things | IDnature guides | Identification Guide to Insect orders