Advanced searches on bugguide... and cooler weather -- so I'm out a lot more! (despite the allergies)

North Central TX is starting to experience just a little bit of fall weather (in the 80's!), so I'll be outside a bunch more, despite the ragweed blooming like crazy and my nose picking up every morsel of pollen...

I've REALLY been getting into bugs, although my ID's are a bit lacking. If you know bugs, I sure would appreciate any guidance.

One thing that is quite nice is the advanced search option on bugguide... A few people had told me about this before, but I'm just now getting the hang of using it:

http://bugguide.net/adv_search/bgsearch.php

With a family name on the "Taxon ID #," and the state selected as "Texas" (or wherever), several options pop up, and you can scroll through the images pretty quickly. For instance, here are the leafhoppers documented in TX on bugguide:

http://bugguide.net/adv_search/bgsearch.php?user=&taxon=146&description=&location%5B%5D=TX&county=&city_location=&adult=&immature=&male=&female=&representative=

You can narrow down the search by using the filters, but I tend not to -- I just use family (or subfamily, genus, etc...) and do a 'search all.'

This has helped me out with my own observations, but I've been using it for others too. :)

Posted on 06 October, 2015 18:42 by sambiology