r/Entomology • • Aug 13 '11

Help us help you: Guidelines for submitting pictures for identification

135 Upvotes

Hello r/Entomology! With this community being used often for insect/arachnid/arthropod identification, I wanted to throw in some guidelines for pictures that will facilitate identification. These aren't rules, so if you don't adhere to these guidelines, you won't be banned or anything like that...it will just make it tougher for other Redditors to give you a correct ID. A lot of you already provide a lot of information with your posts (which is great!), but if you're one of the others that isn't sure what information is important, here you go.

INFORMATION TO INCLUDE WITH YOUR PHOTO

  • Habitat: Such as forest, yard, etc.
  • Time of day: Morning, day, evening, or night will suffice.
  • Geographical Area: State or county is fine. Or, if you're not comfortable with being that specific, you can be general, such as Eastern US.
  • Behavior: What was the bug doing when you found it?

Note about how to take your photo: Macro mode is your friend. On most cameras, it's represented by a flower icon. Turn that on before taking a photo of a bug close up, and you're going to get a drastically better picture. With larger insects it's not as big of a deal, but with the small insects it's a must.

If you follow these guidelines, you'll make it easier for everyone else to help you identify whatever is in your photo. If you feel like I've left anything important out of this post, let me know in the comments.


r/Entomology • • 1d ago

i knitted a bunch of bugs!

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2.5k Upvotes

it was suggested to me that i post my creations on this subreddit too :) hope u guys like my funky little guys


r/Entomology • • 13h ago

Ophelia! My ghost sill moth ~

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263 Upvotes

Figured you might like to meet her here!


r/Entomology • • 36m ago

Insect Appreciation A few Spiders I've met recently

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• Upvotes

Which one is your favorite?


r/Entomology • • 1d ago

Insect Appreciation The weirdest spider I’ve ever met

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1.2k Upvotes

A broad-headed bark spider (Caerostris sp)

Have you ever seen this guy?


r/Entomology • • 10h ago

Insect Appreciation Video of Glomeris marginata.

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83 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 9h ago

Video of Cyclosa conica.

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72 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 3h ago

My hand painted bumblebee beach rock paperweight!

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6 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 16h ago

ID Request Inchworms?

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50 Upvotes

I posted here and another subreddit about some coppery egg clusters that appeared overnight trying to get an ID. Unfortunately(?) I took too long (2 day) to remove the eggs and they started to hatch into these worm things. Does anyone know what these are?

Location: South Seattle, WA, USA

A link to my other post with pictures of the eggs: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisbug/s/N107S5EC6P


r/Entomology • • 1h ago

Specimen prep Is there a way to preserve this?

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• Upvotes

Hello! I have a couple cocoons on my house, this one has gotten dark and I assume cooked ☹️. Has it expired? If so is there a way to preserve this?


r/Entomology • • 7h ago

ID Request East Gippsland, Australia

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8 Upvotes

Not sure if anyone here is an Australian local, but trying to work out what this is.


r/Entomology • • 4m ago

Discussion Every fall, the wasps, they come

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• Upvotes

I'm not trying to identify this, it's a wasp and that's enough for moi.

I have a very irrational fear of wasps (spheksophobia?), but I've done my best to trap them and put them outside (without running away screaming ew ew ew like a little girl) ever since a bizarre interaction with one last year.

Right now I have two buzzing around my kitchen, this one is snacking on tiny bits of honey stuck to a jar in my tea prep area, and the other seems more interested in the water-filled dishes in my sink.

My only question is how might I best lure them into a jar so I can trap and put them outside? From what I read I don't think honey is good for them, and I suspect what they're really looking for is water. I have a jar with a few drops of water and a drop of honey sitting near the pictured wasp, and this time it's just ignoring it. It's easy to trap them when they cling to a flat surface, but these two are not cooperating.

Suggestions for safe and humane removal of wasps from house welcome. 🐝


r/Entomology • • 4h ago

what kind of millipedes are these? found in sicily, italy

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4 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 10h ago

ID Request Had never seen a purple beetle before until today

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15 Upvotes

What kind of beetle is this?


r/Entomology • • 12h ago

The 🐉 Fly with Countless Lenses

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17 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 11h ago

ID Request Central Kentucky in US

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7 Upvotes

It was nighttime inside a bedroom. It was black/brown, spotted wings and a very long tail/antenna. Also buzzed when flying like a loud wasp.


r/Entomology • • 42m ago

News/Article/Journal Honeybee Stinger Pump

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• Upvotes

AAAS: "Honey bees inject venom with a two-stroke stinger," by Erik Stokstad.

"Unlike other poisonous animals, bees use a strange set of pistons to pump toxin." Note the 2 arrows in the screenshot of the 2 'pistons' beautifully depicted in the video. "[All] other venomous creatures—snakes, spiders, scorpions, wasps—squeeze poison from a storage sac and out of their fangs or stingers." 

"Honey bees instead use a piston-driven pump, something common in machines but very rare in nature." The business end of a honey bee stinger consists of two tiny lances inside a rigid sheath, extending from a venom sac. "When a bee lands [+ it has to first land] to sting, the barbed tips of the lances pierce the target’s flesh, causing the lances, sheath, + venom sac to rip from the bee’s body as it flies away." This move dooms the bee to die—and leaves behind an apparatus that can keep pumping venom into the victim. 

"More than a century ago, biologists noticed that before bee venom exits the stinger, it flows into a swollen bulb containing two pistonlike structures that are attached to the stinger’s lances." Although this tiny contraption had long been suspected of acting like a pump, no one had observed it in action. "In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team describes how it works." 

"Each piston is a flexible flap shaped like a baseball cap attached to the upper end of each lance, which extends into the stinger’s bulb." As one lance moves down, its bottom end drives deeper into the victim’s flesh, while the piston on the lance’s upper end extends across the bulb + forms a seal, like the rubber ring on a plunger in a syringe. "This allows the lance to push venom out of the stinger as it moves downward, while also drawing more venom from the sac into the bulb."

"On the lance’s way back up, however, the flap collapses, allowing the other lance’s flap to form a seal in the bulb + keep pushing venom out as the other lance moves downward." This back-and-forth allows the venom to flow out nonstop. 

"[Scientists] hope the piston pumps might inspire the invention of tiny pumps for biomedical devices." A silver lining as it were. From pain comes progress.


r/Entomology • • 1h ago

Discussion Weevils! More weevils!

• Upvotes

I live and travel around the Houston, Tx area and since around April of this year and still to this month, I've noticed a lot more weevils (inside offices/homes/even a store at the mall!)

Is anyone a weevil expert that can tell me if I'm crazy and it's a coincidence or are there really more weevils this year (or this time / times of year)?

Also, isn't that little horn so cute?


r/Entomology • • 1h ago

Wolf Spider and a Beetle Floating on a Leaf

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• Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 2h ago

Insect Appreciation Let it Tee!

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0 Upvotes

An interesting specimen for sure!


r/Entomology • • 13h ago

ID Request House spider? Brown recluse? Dangerous?

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5 Upvotes

This guy was in my bathroom and I asked my husband to let him outside hut by the time he got there, he was already gone so now I’m just overthinking for us and our cats sake lol. I’m pretty sure not a recluse but want to be positive it’s nothing harmful. We live in Colorado if it helps! Probably about the size of a nickel or quarter all the way around


r/Entomology • • 10h ago

Una vinchuca asesina esperando pacientemente a su victima😨

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2 Upvotes

r/Entomology • • 8h ago

ID Request Identification

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2 Upvotes
  • Habitat: All over my home
  • Time of day: All hours
  • Geographical Area: West Coast, USA
  • Behavior
    • They seem to be attracted to either heat or light because they will often land on my phone screen at night.
    • They seem to be attracted to my food as well. When I spread mayonnaise and mustard on bread, have a hot drink like tea in a mug, or have an open pot of food on the stove, they fly around in the area and sometimes land on the food or fly into the drink even if they die.
    • They also land on my wooden desk where there are none of the previously listed potential attractants.

The picture doesn't show it very well, but they are approximately the size of the head of a pin, maybe a millimeter.


r/Entomology • • 1d ago

Insect Appreciation these pics were taken literally a minute apart

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474 Upvotes

bro got a little drink

ETA before anyone yells at me i know it was dangerous to let her keep drinking, i just have no survival instincts. pls don’t do this you could get really sick!


r/Entomology • • 6h ago

News/Article/Journal Morphogenesis of the Drosophila antennal auditory structure in the pupa, with a focus on the connection between the sensory organ and the exoskeleton

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1 Upvotes