Research Guides: Entomology: Entomologic/Taxonomic Guides

Entomologic/Taxonomic Guides

Taxonomic Guides
Entomologic Guides

Taxonomy is the describing, identifying, classifying, and naming of organisms. Knowing the taxonomic name for an organism you are interested in will aid you in searching databases for articles. Use the sources below to locate taxonomic names as well as citations to publications which describe, identify, classify, or name an organism. Many encyclopedias also include taxonomic names in entries about specific organisms.

Animal Diversity Web
Guide to the animal kingdom only; includes general information about species, pictures, sounds, and classification.
Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist
A "comprehensive catalog of all known species of organisms on Earth," this source gathers and integrates taxonomic data from over 60 international sources.
Index to Organism Names (ION)
Searchable index of millions of scientific names, both fossil and current, from the scientific literature.
ITIS: Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world; as of December 2008, contains more than 482,560 scientific names, more than 76% of which have been verified in the literature, leaving about 106,000 names as unverified legacy data.
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Taxonomy Browser
Contains the names of all organisms that are represented in the genetic databases with at least one nucleotide or protein sequence.

Below you will find entomologic guides to help identify insects and arachnids, including but not limited to, scientific and common names, songs and sounds, photographic and locational data, and much more.

Antweb
Online database featuring images, geographic information, and specimen records for over 11,000 species of ants from the California Academy of Sciences.
Bug Bytes
Collection of insect recordings assembled by Richard Mankin. Example recordings include pine weevil, fire ant, and onion fly.
BugInfo
Collection of fact sheets about insects with topics ranging from the number of insects of the diseases they carry to insects as pets and food for humans.
Butterflies and Moths of the World
Catalog from the British Natural History Museum of over 32,000 genus-group names of butterflies and moths with images of most families.
Common Names of Insects
Database from the Entomological Society of America which allows users to search for both common names using scientific names and scientific names using common names.
Entomology and Invertebrate Zoology Libraries
Three satellite Smithsonian libraries for Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, and Crustacea with a collection of around 29,000 volumes. The libraries focus on the taxonomy, morphology, ecology, evolution, biodiversity, and comparative anatomy of invertebrates.
The US National Entomology Collection
The US National Entomology Collection is the world's second largest with over 35 million specimens covering over 300,000 species. This site contains information about the collection profiles, their management, and a link to their specimen database.
SpiderID
Crowdsourced project to identify spiders from around the world. The project has over 6000 members, with more than 390 identified species from more than 8000 images.