As the point of the blog is to show a lot of pictures of insects from around Oregon, I’ll be doing just that. However, what I likely will not be doing is providing identifications past my own level of sight-ID for the insects I upload. There are a few reasons for this:
First, Accurate insect ID is very difficult, especially at the species level. My expertise is in Pentatomidae, or stink bug. When I say expertise, I mean that it’s the group that I have spent the most time identifying, and also enjoy the most. Even so, many of the species-level ID’s require dissection of very careful inspection of internal parts – something I have not done to any level that I would call myself an expert. Some of them are very easy to get to species level, but some species are superficially nearly identical. For many groups of insects, species ID is only done (officially) but a handful of experts on that group, or by taxonomists at institutions such as the Smithsonian.
Outside of the stink bugs, I am pretty good at ID’ing to family level, but anything further than that would require using a key to get it right. I don’t have time for that right now, as much as I’d like to do it, for everything that I’d like to know. Rather than get something wrong and tell me that I am wrong, I’ll just skip it.
Second, it doesn’t help anybody to guess at an ID and get it wrong. There are many incorrect insect IDs all over the Internet (including some of mine) that are linked to images of insects. The problem is that the misidentification is then perpetuated, when somebody assumes it’s correct and then links to that image or uses it for some other informational purpose. For example, this segment misidentifies BMSB, a terrible pest, as a rough stink bug, a possible beneficial insect , or at the very least, an innocuous species. I don’t want my images to come up in google searches if they are incorrect.
Likely I will mention the Order and Family if I know it, and probably include common names if there is one. The purpose of the blog is to educate those who want to know about some of the insects around the state, so I’d like to be as accessible with the taxonomy as possible. If you happen to know the species, please let me know and I’ll add it.
If you are interested in taking pictures of insects and learning what they are, I’d suggest starting an account with Project Noah. It’s a great program that’s intended to make people aware of the organisms around them. Better yet, learn to use dichotomous keys!
-CH
Oregon Beat Sheet 