Bugs: Other

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While butterflies and dragonflies steal the limelight, the vast majority of species are either beetles, flies, true bugs, or Hymenoptera (made of ants, bees and wasps).  Too much diversity in fact for most naturalists.  Too much diversity also results in few comprehensive field guides.  Those that are comprehensive can be rather technical.  So with the majority of orders that follow I mark with a star resources that experienced amateur naturalists can utilize without too much difficulty. Hymenoptera: Bees, Ants, Wasps Another diverse order of bugs with few relatively accessible resources, although getting better as of late. Bees The Bumble Bees of Algonquin Provincial Park: A Field Guide Pub Review Common Bees of Eastern North America Pub Am  GB The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees Am Same authors as above book.  Coffee table version. Common Bees of Eastern North America (Foldout guide) Am Same aouthors as well.  Fold-out chart. Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide: An Identification Guide GB The Bees of the World, 2nd edition AM GB, 1st edition Eastern Bumble Bees of the Eastern United States PDF Same authors as Bumblee Bees of North America Common Bees & Wasps of Ohio Field Guide PDF North American bumblebees Bumblebee Pocketguides *Bee Genera of Canada Photographic key. *Types of Bees Photograph based. Life history information for each type of bee. The Yellowjackets of America North of Mexico (Large PDF) Bumblebees of Southern Ontario: Notes on the Natural History and Distribution (PDF) Ants A Field Guide to the Ants of New England GB The only species level book available for the amateur.  The New England area overlaps well with Ontario. *Ants of North America GB Illustrated key, black and white, close-ups.  Photographic plates. The only general field guide in North America for ants.  It covers down to the genera of ants.   Bolton's Catalogue of Ants of the World 1758-2005 GB For the ultimate reference, on a CDROM this resource covers 14450 species and subspecies of ants and all the taxonomic papers from 1758 to 2005.  Quite a bit of information! Carpenter Ants Of The United States And Canada GB Illustrated key. Color plates. Range maps, chapters on various behaviors. *Ants of North America Photograph based. Useful perhaps for identifying an ant to species, after you determine its genus from the book Ants of North America.  Not sure if it covers all the species. Wasps Wasps: Their Biology, Diversity, and Role as Beneficial Insects and Pollinators of Native Plants Am The first guide key to common wasp species in Eastern North America The Social Wasps of North America Pub Common Bees & Wasps of Ohio Field Guide PDF All the following books are rather technical with a few exceptions. Parasitic Wasps GB Biology of parasitic wasps mostly. Annotated Keys to the Genera of Nearctic Chalcidoidea GB Text keys with some black and white photos and illustrations, close-up. The Natural History and Behavior of North American Beewolves GB A family of solitary wasps. Natural History and Evolution of Paper-Wasps GB Text keys. Aleiodes wasps of eastern forests: A guide to parasitoids and associated mummified caterpillars Full Text Photograph based. Yellowjackets of America North of Mexico GB  Sphecid wasps of the world: a generic revision GB Text keys, some illustrations, black and white. *The Man Who Loved Wasps: A Howard Ensign Evans Reader GB *Solitary Wasps: Behavior and Natural History GB *Wasps Pictures of wasps. *Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of the northeastern Nearctic region Photographic key. *Sphecid Wasps of Michigan Photograph based. (Thread-waisted Wasps) Life histories *Handbook of Nearctic Chalcidoidea Illustrated key with photographs.  Parasitic family of wasps that prey on pupae of butterfly, moths, flies and maggots. *Solitary Wasps Videos. Dick Walton - Natural History Services - Online Video Diptera: True Flies  Flies show the greatest species diversity of the orders of insects in Canada. True Flies Flies: The Natural History and Diversity of Diptera Am Highly recommended.  Loaded with images and information.  Heavy book. Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America Pub This long awaited field guide is coming out May 2019.  This breakthough guide will make these striking flies much more accessible to naturalists. Hover Flies/Flower Flies A field guide is in production, but these resouces below should help.  The key to genus is a place to start  - but you may not have enough info in your photo.  Once you have the genus you can check out the Field Guide to the Syrphidae of Ontario and the EOF entries.  Bugguide.net may also help especially if the genus key doesn't work for you. *Field Guide to the Syrphidae of Ontario.  Photograph based. While studying flower flies aka hover flies is popular in Europe this website is a first for Ontario.  You may it distasteful the fact the insects are impaled for the purpose of the website. Checklist of Syrphidae of Ontario Picked from a Jan 8, 2008 snapshot from the Wayback Machine from the preceding website. Key to the Genera of Nearctic Syrphidae Key to North American genus. General Information on Syrphidae Related to above guides Robber Flies *Robber Flies from wisconsinbutterflies.org Photograph based. An attractive and useful online field guide to robber flies for our neighbor state Wisconsin.  Good photographs and life histories. Robber Flies A central site for robber flies. Keys available, some photographic. Laphria Meigen s. str. in Eastern North America Photograph based. Bee Flies *The Bee Flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) of Ontario, with a Key to the Species of Eastern Canada Photographic key. Crane Flies *Crane Flies of Pennsylvania Photographic key. Technical terminology. Biting Insects Incredibly there are field guides to both mosquitoes and black flies complete with range maps and coverage of all the species in North America north of Mexico.  These books are not only useful for keen field observers (with patience for scientific jargon) but also researchers and for people involved in mosquito or black fly control programs.   Identification and Geographical Distribution of the Mosquitoes of North America, North of Mexico GB Illustrated key. The Black Flies (Simuliidae) of North America GB Reference. The black fly book is more detailed and probably includes hard to read research reports.  It includes species descriptions and in fact contains nearly all published information on black flies.  The mosquito book is mostly a detailed key. *Photographic Key to the Adult Female Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) of Canada Photographic key. *Tabanidae of Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains Photographic key. Horseflies of eastern Canada. A Checklist of the 67 Mosquito Species of Ontario, Canada Other True Flies *Anatomical Atlas of Flies Spiffy atlas to the anatomical features of several flies. Herschel Raney's Diptera Keys Bunch of keys to various families of flies USDA Diptera Site A worldwide portal to true flies.  Links to many sites with keys or other information on specific families of flies.  Families inside the site. Quite a few links are broken at the present time. Identification Manual for the Larval Chironomidae (Diptera) of North and South Carolina Illustrated key, black and white, close-ups. Non-biting midges Bird Blow Fly  Keys to the Genera and Species of Blow Flies (Diptera:Calliphoridae) of America North of Mexico - Terry Whitworth Text key, black and white illustrations. Tachinidae chapter by Wood from Manual of Nearctic Diptera Morphology, higher-level phylogeny and classification of the Empidoidea (2006 Zootaxa paper by Sinclair and Cumming) A Catalog of the Diptera of America North of Mexico Full text Text key, color plates. Destructive and Useful Insects: Their Habits and Control Am The Plant-Feeding Gall Midges of North America GB The Chironomidae (Non-biting midges, keys to subfamilies on page 53) GB Illustrated key, black and white. Hemiptera: True Bugs True bugs are an immensely diverse order of bugs but few books or websites cover specific families of true bugs. Catalogue of the Hemiptera of American North of Mexico: Vol. 2 Full Text The Pentatomoidea (Hemiptera) of Northeastern North America GB Text key. Stink bugs, keys, no photos, illustrations Heteroptera of Eastern North America Full text Illustrated key, black and white. How to Know the True Bugs GB Illustrated key, black and white. Waterstriders of Ontario Archive Leafhoppers of ornamental and fruit trees in Canada PDF An archived book *ScaleNet A portal for scale bugs.  You can find identification keys for scale bugs from this website. Planthoppers of North America Cicadas Another singing insect group.  Ontario gets about ten species for so, mostly in southern Ontario.  Accounts of these species can be found at *Great Lakes Cicada Page.  Another website to check out: *Cicadas of Michigan. Coming in fall 2024 is a book called Cicadas of North America Orthoptera: Grasshoppers, Katydids and Crickets  The appeal of orthoptera is that many have songs and mating displays.  A recommended piece of gear for orthoptera are breathable ziplock bags.  Cheap and doesn't fry or suffocate the bugs you are trying to identify. Ziplock breathable bags How to Know the Grasshoppers, Cockroaches, and Their Allies *Field Guide To Grasshoppers, Katydids, And Crickets Of The United States Am Ch Photograph based, illustrated key. My top recommendation. Beautifully illustrated color plates. Good illustrated key.  Downsides are it covers only 1/3 of the species and splits pictures from species accounts.  Makes a great beginner's guide.  A companion website, Singing Insects Of North America, has useful recordings and covers all the species of crickets and katydids of North America.  The website also covers some cicadas (in the order true bugs).  How to Know the Grasshoppers, Cockroaches, and Their Allies GB Illustrated key. Pretty old so much of it is out of date but has more detailed information on some groups. Will fill most of the gaps not covered in the above guide.   *Orthoptera of Michigan >> GB Photograph based, text key. A guide that covers all the species of Michigan.  It has good life history information.  This should fill in many species not in the first book.  *Guide to the Grasshoppers of Wisconsin >>  Photograph based, species profiles separate, partially illustrated key in black and white. May fill in a few more gaps, particularly for those living in western Ontario.  Out of print but has a free PDF.   *Guide Sonore et Visuel des Insectes Chanteurs du Québec et de l'Est de l'Amérique du Nord. Pub Pub(English Translation) This is a guide to the orthoptera of Quebec.  It includes a CD of insect songs which includes cicadas which are not orthoptera.  If you read French this may be the most useful field guide for these type of insects. Orthoptera of Northeastern America Full Text Really old but detailed The North American Grasshoppers Vol 1 & 2 GB Partly illustrated key, black and white, close-ups. This will cover all the grasshoppers but it is too big to carry into field. *Guide to Night-Singing Insects of the Northeast GB Illustration based, CD included. Covers the species found of New England, New York and New Jersey. *Singing Insects Of North America Photograph based, illustrated keys, sound files, sonograms. A companion site to the book Field Guide To Grasshoppers, Katydids, And Crickets Of The United States.  This site has complete coverage of crickets and katydids. *Tree Crickets Photograph and video based. Includes all the tree crickets of US and Canada. Detailed life history. *Grasshoppers of the Canadian Prairies Photograph based. Covers common species. Has links to grasshopper field guides in PDF format and other useful information. *Songs of Insects More insect song. Orthoptera Species File Online Taxonomy database. Orthoptera of the Northern Great Plains Text key with photographs at the endpoints of the key. North and South Dakota "Fly-fishing" Orders Mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies and other aquatic insect orders are mostly of interest to people who do fly-fishing.  These aquatic insects are great bioindicators and is a chance for "fly-fishermen" to contribute to science if they tracks these insects.  Flyfishing Entomology is the main site on the internet about this topic. From that website is their recommended books and entomology bookshelf. Troutnet.com A portal for fly-fishing for trout.  Identification resources for most aquatic orders of bugs, especially mayflies, caddisflies and stoneflies. Mayflies *Hatches II GB Photograph based, black and white and color plates. Genus level, North America.  Great color photographs. *Mayflies: Major Eastern and Midwestern Hatches GB Photograph based. Common mayflies.  Great photography. Mayflies of Michigan Trout Streams GB Illustration based. Species level, with illustrations of nymphs, wing venation, and genitalia *Mayflies the Angler and the Trout GB Species level keys, very detailed. Mayflies, An Angler’s Study of Trout Water Ephemeroptera GB Illustration based, reference. Caddisflies *Caddisflies GB Illustration based, black and white. Definitive reference. *The Caddisfly Handbook GB *Caddisflies: A Guide to Eastern Species for Anglers and Other Naturalists GB Am Caddisflies: The Underwater Architects GB Text key with some black and white illustrations. Genera of the Trichoptera of Canada and Adjoining or Adjacent United States Stoneflies *American Stoneflies: A Photographic Guide to the Plecoptera GB Photograph based. Species level, color photographs, adults and immatures  *Stoneflies for the Angler GB >> Photograph based. Nymphs of North American Stonefly Genera Am GB Aquatic Insect Orders *Selective Trout GB Mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies  *An Angler’s Guide to Aquatic Insects And Their Imitations Am Species level but generalized, all types, adults and immatures, general . Aquatic Entomology: The Fishermens Guide and Ecologists Illustrated Guide to Insects and Their Relatives GB Illustrated key, black and white.  Illustrated plates, color. Great textbook on aquatic entomology. Guide to Aquatic Invertebrates of the Upper Midwest PDFs Illustration based *Fishbugs: The Aquatic Insects of an Eastern Fly Fisher GB  Coffetable book Aquatic Insect Orders - Immature *Nymphs Volume 1: Mayflies GB *Nymphs Volume II: Stoneflies, Caddisflies, and Other Important Insects ... GB *The Hatches Made Simple GB Predict hatchings. Larvae of the North American Caddisfly Genera (Trichoptera) GB Other Insect Orders Stick Insects of the Continental United States and Canada GB North American Psocoptera GB Photographic key, black and white. Barklice and Booklice Keys to the Family and Genera of Psocoptera PDF *Mecoptera of Ontario Photographic key. Scorpion Flies.  Good photographic key.  A small insect order. The Order Dermaptera (Earwigs) in Florida and the United States, by P. M. Choate (modified from Hoffman, 1987) Photographic key.  Ontario only has a few species of earwigs. Fleas of the World Orders without known specific resources: Thrips Homoptera (Cicada, Leafhoppers, Aphids) (formally part of true bugs) Cockroaches Mantids Silverfish (Thysanura)