www.richard-seaman.com / Bugs / Website Links

Bug Website Links

General By Country By Order
Australia Ants   (hymenoptera)
By Region Costa Rica Butterflies   (lepidoptera)
Asia Malaysia Caterpillars   (lepidoptera)
Latin America Mexico Dragonflies and Damselflies   (odonata)
New Zealand Moths   (lepidoptera)
Singapore Spiders   (araneae)
Thailand
USA

General Bug Websites

Mark Cassino's "Page 2000" website This private individual's website is packed with very high quality and very artistically photographed insects and spiders, as well as other subjects of general interest.
Insects on the World Wide Web This is a list maintained by the entomology department of the University of Vermont in the USA.
Insect and Spider Collections of the World This database of insect and spider collections around the world includes a search engine, but it only allows you to find the collection, not to find which collections have a particular species.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Entomology Dept The Smithsonian Institute maintains this entomology website which includes a database library, which contains information about the specimens in the Smithsonian Institute collection, but no photos or species data.

Bug Websites by Region

Asia

India Nature Watch The best, and a little bit of the worst, of the internet.   The galleries (such as the butterfly and moth gallery) consist of photos posted by members of the public.   Surprisingly, they're of generally good quality but unfortunately they're totally unsorted, and there are even photos of dragonflies, crickets and birds in the lepidoptera gallery.   With 40 large thumbnails per page, you'll eventually find what you're looking for, but with 3790 photos in this one gallery, it might a while!   The galleries also function as forums, so this is a very good place to ask people for an ID of what you've photographed.   Last visited in December of 2008.
Butterfly Circle Go to my review of this website.
Chin's Butterfly Gallery Go to my review of this website.
ThaiBugs.com Go to my review of this website.

Latin America

Neotropical Butterflies Go to my review of this website.

Bug Websites by Country

Australia

CSIRO Entomology insect identification pages with photos categorized by insect or spider type, but there's so little information here that you might as well not bother - the "butterfly and moth" page, for instance, had exactly one photo when I visited in October of 2003.  The website is only salvaged by its large list of images listed by name - but each insect has its own separate page, making identification of an unidentified insect a nightmare.

Costa Rica

INBIOS The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad is a Costa Rican scientific research organization.   The website is primarily in Spanish, but with an English introductory section.   There's a section called UBIs which has photo galleries of various categories of animal and plant life; it's in Spanish, but I found it useful because it has photos and latin names for everything.

Malaysia

Chin's Butterfly Gallery Go to my review of this website.

Mexico

Neotropical Butterflies Go to my review of this website.

New Zealand

Insects and Spiders of New Zealand This government sponsored website is very short on information, and the website links page has very few links to New Zealand insect and spider websites.

Singapore

Butterfly Circle Go to my review of this website.

Thailand

ThaiBugs John Moore is an amateur entymologist living near Chiang Mai in Thailand.   He has amassed a huge collection of arthropod photos from this area, split into photo galleries arranged by the type of "bug", as well as galleries of amphibians and snakes, which somehow includes snails and other critters!   The website has improved enormously since I lasted visited in April of 2009, the design is much more professional and the size and quality of the photos have both increased greatly.   There's very little information about the bugs, but if you hover the cursor over the thumbnail then you'll see the scientific name, when known.   The site also has essays and blog entries on various topics.   Last visited in January of 2011.

USA

What's That Bug? This website provides identification pages for many different types of arthropod.   Each type of insect, spider or other arthropod has one or more pages with photos sent in by people trying to identify some bug they've found.  The photo quality is therefore not always brilliant, the photos are a little small and each of the pages is huge, but this is still a useful resource, though it might take a while to track down what you've seen.  A more compact photo gallery would certainly have made life easier.   Last visited in January of 2007.
Elytra and Antenna OK, maybe they should have called it "Elytra and Antennae", but nevertheless this website is good, with a photo gallery of America's most interesting beetles, walking sticks, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids and giant moths.  Each photo is accompanied by a description geared towards raising the insect in captivity.  There's a separate photo gallery of centipedes, millipedes and spiders.
Field Guide to Common Texas Insects This website by the Texas A&M University Entomology Department has photo galleries with links to species from many different insect and non-insect animal orders.   Each link takes you to a page with a photograph and description of the species.   Unfortunately the photos in the photo galleries are of poor quality.

Bug Websites by Order

Ants Beetles Moths
By Country
Butterflies Caterpillars USA
general By Country
By Country Australia Spiders
Costa Rica Costa Rica general
Japan USA By Country
Mexico Australia
Singapore Dragonflies and Damselflies USA
USA By Country
USA

Ants

Lurker's Guide to Leafcutter Ants Alan San Juan has put together a very good website devoted to leafcutter ants, with information about their behavior and a good photo gallery.

Beetles

Eudicella.com This website is entirely devoted to stag beetles, rhinoceros beetles and other members of the scarab family.   Anyone who thinks that beetles are ugly should be pointed straight to the Eudicella website's flower beetle photo gallery, which contains about 50 photographs of exquisitely beautiful beetles.   Last visited in August of 2007.

Butterflies

General Butterfly Information

The Butterfly Website This website is fairly well presented, with photo galleries for butterflies, moths and caterpillars.   These photo galleries are accessed by the name of the thing you're looking for, which is good if you already know the name but not so good if you have a picture of a butterfly you want to identify.   The website also has a large list of other butterfly and moth websites.
WildlifeWebSite.com - butterflies and moths This website is polluted with advertising and the photo galleries aren't too great, but it has a good "butterflies and moths of the world" section consisting of links to butterfly and moth websites, sorted by geographical area.
The Butterfly Site The "butterfly pictures" link on this commercially oriented website takes you to an annotated list of about 30 websites with butterfly photos.
Electronic Resources on Lepidoptera The information on this website isn't very accessible (for instance, the lepidoptera image archive is fragmentary and doesn't have proper thumbnails), but there are excellent lists of links to other websites, including lists of websites with photo identifications
The Lepidopterists' Society This scientifically oriented website is currently sitting on a university web server, which means it might move somewhere else in the future.   Like the Association for Tropical Lepidoptera the idea of putting photos of butterflies and moths onto the website seems to be beyond them, but they have a huge list of scantily annotated links to other butterfly and moth websites.   Last visited in June of 2006.
Enchanted Learning butterfly glossary The Enchanted Learning website is aimed at children and has a huge glossary of butterfly terminology, with a page devoted to each letter of the alphabet.   Last visited in March of 2008.
Butterflies of the Carolinas and Virginias I've encountered Randy L. Emmett's website several times when hunting for information on various topics.   This information and photographs are always very good; the main butterfly page doesn't look too promising, but as soon as you select one of the galleries things get much better.   Last visited in March of 2009.
A World For Butterflies Phil Schappert is the author of a very good book called A World For Butterflies.   His website has information about the book, a small website links page and a list of the websites of some butterfly photographers whose work is in the book.
James Mallet's Lepidoptera Website This researcher's website contains a useful page of links to websites describing tropical butterflies and moths, and where to find information on heliconius butterflies.   The information is excellent, but it's very academically oriented and very limited in scope.   Last visited in December of 2005.
Association for Tropical Lepidoptera This could be an extremely good website, but unfortunately it's almost totally worthless.   The Association publishes two scientific journals but they haven't woken up to the possibilities of the internet.   I couldn't find any photographs on the website, the link to the "index to species images" is broken and the photo registry is an inaccessible database of slides which people are invited to contribute to.   Try back later, perhaps they'll get their act together.

Butterfly Information by Country

Costa Rica

Butterflies of Monte Verde This website does a good job of documenting the butterflies of Monte Verde in Costa Rica.   There's a useful list of Costa Rican lepidopteran websites and a special section on Monte Verde's clearwing butterflies.
The Butterfly Farm This website belongs to The Butterfly Farm, which is located near San Jose in Costa Rica.   The photo galleries are likely to appeal to browsers rather than people hoping to identify species, though most photos do contain both English and Latin names of the pictured species.   The links to these galleries are broken, but I managed to track them down.   Last visited in January of 2011.

Japan

Butterflies of Japan This website starts off with some annoying music which will probably drive you to silence your computer's speakers, but the galleries of Japanese butterflies, including their caterpillars and even some eggs, make up for this irritation!  There's an all-in-one gallery with most of the site's butterflies, which makes butterfly identification much faster.   Unfortunately the website hasn't been updated in the last two years.   Last visited in June of 2006.
Japanese Butterfly Gallery There are some good photos on this website, unfortunately they can only be indexed by name.   If you don't know the name, then you have to scroll through page after page, with only one species on each page.

Malaysia

Chin's Butterfly Gallery Chin Fah Shin is a butterfly enthusiast who lives in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia whose website consists of photo galleries divided into families.   The larger photos aren't perfect but are more than adequate for identification purposes and he provides the scientific and common names for each butterfly.   The website is full of commercials, both embedded and occasional popups and there's also a little religious proselytization.   Last visited in December of 2008.

Mexico

Neotropical Butterflies This is a very valuable resource for identifying Mexican butterflies, with an excellent set of butterfly photo galleries arranged by family.   It misses out on five stars only because the photos often don't show the butterfly both with wings open and wings closed, and because the species pages contain photographs but next to no information about the species.   Last visited in March of 2008.
Mariposas Mexicanas The website name might be in Spanish, but this "Interactive Listing of Mexican Butterflies" also gives you the choice of navigating in English.   The website is a bit crude and text heavy, and unfortunately it's one of those websites which is only much good if you already known the species, or at least the genus, of the butterfly you're interested in.   Last visited in March of 2008.

Singapore

Butterfly Circle This is a more professional follow-on to the same individual's "Butterflies of Singapore", which is now obsolete.   The earlier website received four stars because of good content, and the new website has kept all of this content including the photo galleries, laid it out better and incorporated a very nice looking graphic design, though it might be better if the slightly inconspicuous "photo checklist" entry in the navigation menu was changed to "photo gallery".   There's also a very active blog associated with the site.   Last visited in August of 2009.

USA

Butterflies and Moths This website is based on a now defunct website operated by the United States Geological Survey.   There are good photo galleries listed by family, which include some caterpillar photos, but the galleries suffer a bit because the quality of the thumbnails is uneven.   Click on a thumbnail and you'll be taken to a very worthwhile page of information about that species.   Last visited in March of 2008.
North American Butterfly Association The North American Butterfly Association is the largest organization in North America dedicated to butterflies.   Their website has interesting but incomplete photo galleries devoted to the different families of butterflies which inhabit Canada, the USA and Mexico, as well as links to other butterfly websites, including links to American regional butterfly websites.
Georgia Lepidoptera This website covers butterflies and moths in the south-east of the United States.
World Museum of Natural History When I visited at the end of 2001, this privately owned venture had a gallery of 77 North American butterflies and moths.

Caterpillars

Australia

Butterfly Larvae of Australia The caterpillar, butterfly and moth section of Don Herbison-Evan's website is slightly uneven, you have to access the butterflies and moths via the caterpillars, but it's still worthwhile and he is a real expert.   Last visited in March of 2009.

Costa Rica

Caterpillars and Parasitoids of a Costa Rican Tropical Wet Forest This website doesn't seem to have been updated since 2002.   Unfortunately there are no photo galleries, instead navigation is done solely by family name and scientific name.   The species pages on this website include fairly good photographs.   Last visited in January of 2011.
Janzen and Hallwachs Caterpillars This is the website of a couple of people at the University of Pennsylvania, whose interest is the caterpillars of Costa Rica.

USA

Caterpillars of Eastern Forests This United States Geological Survey website has photo galleries of butterfly and moth caterpillars under the family listings, unfortunately the photos are very small.   There are an awful lot of caterpillars shown here, but of course it's nowhere near a comprehensive collection.   Last visited on 2008/04/18.
What's This Caterpillar  (American section) This British website has several hundred photos of American caterpillars with identifications.   The thumbnails are a little bit small, and I'm not certain that all of the identifications are correct (the American Painted Lady looks more like a smeared dagger moth to me), but this is a very good starting point when trying to pin down an identification.
University of Maryland Barbosalab Dr Pedro Barbosa's website has eight photo galleries showing caterpillars from the eastern seaboard of the USA.   The photos aren't that big, but they're useable.
Caterpillars of North-Western Forests This United States Geological Survey website is very poorly done from a photographic point of view.   Hopefully one day it will become as good as the corresponding Caterpillars of Eastern Forests website, but in the last three years there have been no changes apart from a reorganization which broke many of the links.   Last visited on 2008/04/18.

Dragonflies and Damselflies

USA

Dragonflies and Damselflies of the United States As with the other sections of the United States Geological Survey website, the photos in the photo galleries are too small and many species aren't represented, however this is still a useful resource for identification.   The front page has state-by-state information as well as an excellent list of links to other websites.   Last visited on 2005/07/13.
Checklist of Monterey County Odonata In spite of its name, this website has a photo gallery of 48 species of dragonfly and damselfly found in Monterey County, California.   The style of the website is very old, but the photos are good and the species pages are full of interesting information.   Last visited in January of 2011.
University of Puget Sound Odonata Website A website operated by the University of Puget Sound which has links to odonata information for the USA, the Caribbean and Latin America, and other links (but unfortunately, no thumbnails) to good quality photographs (including many macros) of dragonflies and damselflies of North-West America.   Last visited in April of 2008.
Arizona Odonates A noble effort, but unfortunately this website has no photo galleries, so you have to navigate it by the scientific name or common name of the dragonfly or damselfly.   Last visited in January of 2011.


Mantises

World of Mantids Martin Stiewe's German website is brief and scientifically oriented, but it has a nice gallery of mantids.   Last visited in April of 2009.

Moths

USA

Moths of North America This website previously operated by the United States Geological Survey website has been folded into the ButterfliesAndMoths.org website reviewed above.
Kirby Wolfe's Saturniidae Collection This is an excellent website featuring the Saturniidae, or giant silk moths, many of which have spectacular colors and patterns.   Although the photos are said to be low resolution, they are far superior to the photographs found on most websites.  The only thing keeping this website from a 5 star rating is that there's no gallery - to view the photos of moths and their caterpillars you have to click on the Latin name.
Web Images of North American Moth Species This frame-based website has links to photos of 6,300 North American moth species.   Unfortunately there is a high probability of bad links, because most of the links on this site point to photographs on other sites.   Originally, to find a photo you already had to know the name of the moth, which made identifying a moth using these photos next to impossible.   The situation has been improved slightly by an identification page for the major families, but this still takes you to the list of species, arranged by family.   Last visited in January of 2008.
Noctuid Search This website seems to be oriented towards moths as plant pests, it has a huge list of noctuid moths arranged by their scientific names, with photos of most of them.


Spiders

International Society for Arachnology This scientific website contains a good list of website links for spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions.

Spider Information By Country

Australia

Australian Museum:  Spiders General information on various subjects, together with a gallery of 51 Australian spider species.   Last visited in January of 2011.

USA

Spiders on the Web This website should be called by its subtitle, "Spiders of Orange County, California".   There are about 75 photographs of spiders and arachnids here, the photographs are very good and the spiders are mostly ones which aren't limited in range to California.   Last visited in July of 2007.
Spiders in Ohio This website has a good photo index page which links to pages of photos of spiders ordered by family.   The thumbnails are very small and the linked photos aren't too big, either, but this site is still a good resource for identifying American spiders.

www.richard-seaman.com / Bugs / Website Links