Useful resources

The internet has allowed us new and veteran wildlife enthusiasts to expand our knowledge and identify all our exciting finds.  There has been a significant increase in the breadth of identification resources compared to available print resources; even insects and other understudied groups have plenty of resources floating around on the web.  Reliable keys and resources can be tricky to locate so here is a list of my favourite resources arranged by taxonomic Order (most of these are insect-orientated!).  At the bottom of this list are some places to add your records such as iRecord or your Local Environmental Records Centre (click here to discover yours).

Member organisations (often have citizen science projects and training days)
  • The Wildlife Trusts have branches in each local region and run training and work-party days (search for your local Trust branch here).
  • BugLife is an invertebrate charity (yes, including worms to jellyfish and earwigs to snails) with lots of ongoing conservation projects and also run training events.  They have had lots of conservation successes are excellent at public engagement on social media and at outreach events.
  • Amateur Entomologist's Society is a volunteer-run group aiming to 'promote the study to entomology, especially amongst amateurs and the younger generation'.  They have several regular publications for members and an Annual Exhibition and Trade Fair (usually at Kempton Park Race Course).
  • Field Studies Council is a charity aiming to educate and get people outdoors.  They have several field centres across the UK.  BioLinks is one of their projects from 2018-2022 for identification and recording of invertebrates.  From this project they have an amazing diversity of courses to choose from, resources, and Virtual Meet Ups and Natural History Live online talks.  The FSC have great fold-out guides and books for UK wildlife and habitats, e.g., plants, birds, insects, fungi, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, GIS, surveys, marine and freshwater species, lichens
  • British Entomological and Natural History Society is another British society and they have options to help identify insects.  BENHS also have an annual exhibition in November.

Identification resources 
Some are European (don't worry as we share quite a few species across the Channel and Google Translate often automatically translates these pages).

General resources and websites

ANIMALS

General invertebrates - non-insects listed later

Insects

Coleoptera (beetles)

Dermaptera (earwigs)

Dictyoptera (cockroaches)

Diptera (flies)

Hemiptera (true bugs)

Hymenoptera - my favourites, especially the cuddly fluff balls

Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)

Neuroptera, Mecoptera, and Megaloptera (lacewings, scorpionflies, alderflies)

Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies)

Orthoptera (grasshoppers, bush-crickets, and crickets)

Psycoptera (barkflies)

Thysanoptera (always thrips, never a thrip!)

Riverflies (Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Trichoptera (caddisflies), and Plecoptera (stoneflies))

Other invertebrates

Annelida (worms)

Arachnida (spiders and other eight-legged creatures, not octopus or squid though!)

Woodlice

Archaeognatha

Gastropods (slugs and snails)

Myriapoda (Diplopoda and Chilopoda, millipedes and centipedes)

Vertebrates

Birds

Herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians)

Mammals

PLANTS and FUNGI

Plants
Fungi

Recording

Once you have identified your find, biological recording is important.  Your records can be used in several ways; to keep a record or map where you have found wildlife; or scientifically.  Citizen science (see below) and other projects can also use your data to map changes in species distributions and populations.  For example, invasive species like Rhododendron ponticum, or declining native species.
  • iRecord is a great way to record your finds in the UK but more specific Recording Schemes exist too and are listed in the identification links below
  • NBN Atlas allows you to see species distributions in the UK, and NBN Atlas has some recording tools and resources
  • GBIF is a sort of equivalent to NBN for global species distribution records and data can be downloaded here
  • I use UK Grid Reference Finder to translate between Latitude-Longitude, UK Grid References, Eastings-Northings, and What3Words 
  • I use the OS Locate to record GPS for my findings when I am in the field - some phone cameras or digital cameras have GPS you could enable too

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bilberry bumblebees and the National Trust

Image
In my totally 'unbiased' view, these are the best UK  bumblebee  species.  Not only are they super fluffy like other bumblebees, they are adorably sized, and are found in one of my favourite habitat types;  upland heath. BB worker near Pumlumon (June 2018) I have only seen this species once and I was lucky enough to almost study their foraging behaviour for my MSc thesis.  Unfortunately due to the current situation (coronavirus again!) the MSc field work didn't happen.  However, I have just finished writing up the 2020 season report from volunteer data from Bumblebees on the Mynd so this is a perfect time to share this!  Here are some links to check out for these bumblebees and brain wash you all with their fluffiness.  I mean, look at their cute little red bums! Bumblebee Conservation Trust BWARS Steven Falk's Flickr BBCT Pollinating the Peak project by Rho Green at BBCT ( @BuzzingPeak ) Bumblebees on the Mynd National Trust project  @BumbleontheMynd  (see more below!
Read more

Can species reintroductions be successful? The story of the lucky butterflies (part 1: Large Blues)

Image
Large Blue history  The UK's population of Large Blue butterfly ( Phengaris arion ) has always been rare, and sadly declined until it went extinct in 1979. However, it's conservation and reintroduction has been a major success story in invertebrate conservation. Large Blue butterflies mating at Daneway Banks (June 2023) In June 2023, I was lucky enough to join a joint field meeting of the Royal Entomological Society (RES) and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) to see the success of the Large Blue reintroduction project at Daneway Banks SSSI (Gloucestershire). This population is not only the largest UK population, but also the largest population globally (since 2019)!  BSBI and RES field meeting at Daneway (17th June 2023) The Large Blue relies on the red ant Myrmica sabuleti  to complete its lifecycle. The decline of these ants in the 60s-70s resulted in the 1979 Large Blue UK extinction. These ants cannot build mounds to reach suitable microclimates (heat) un
Read more

Invertebrate surveys

Image
Why bother? Invertebrates are excellent indicators of ecosystem health and make up most of life on Earth (97%). In the UK, we have more than 32,000 terrestrial and freshwater and 7,000 marine invertebrate species. Many of these are declining or endangered. Like the diversity of invertebrates, there are many survey techniques depending on the species you want to survey for (target taxa), habitats present, life stage, and whether you are proving presence/absence or calculating populations. What shall I survey? If I had the time I would survey everything but as much as I would love to, this just isn't achievable. So what are the main survey priorities? An excellent starting point is looking at the habitats present as this can inform which groups we might find more of and suggest how invertebrates use the site. It is useful to map habitats and features first, then choose the survey methods to use. This includes habitat type (broad and/or specific), size, connectivity, substrate type, w
Read more