Natural History Photographs

Most insects shown on this site are named at genus or species level. The names I give are often provided by various experts in particular groups (see acknowledgements). Despite their and my best efforts, the names I provide should be treated with due care. Quite often an insect is difficult to identify from a photograph, because minute anatomical details, rarely if ever visible on a photograph, may be paramount.

When I know the genus a particular insect belongs to, but not which species it is, I use the customary abbreviation 'spec.' - for species - instead of the species name. Sometimes one can make a pretty good guess wich species a bee belongs to, but not with certainty exclude similar species. In such cases, I use that species' name hedged with the abbreviation 'cf', meaning something like compare with. Real specialists might object aginst this whimsy use of names, but for me it is the only way to get to grips with the large number of species, a good deal of which cannot be with certainty identified from photograph.

The search facility is currently restricted to the following insect groups: Coleoptera, Diptera Hymenoptera, Odonata and Papilionoidea. The search facility has two modes: simple and advanced search.

Simple search
In the simple mode, you can enter a species name, geographic location, year and some keyword(s). All fields are optional; open fields do not select. For instance, if you enter nothing and do a search, all material in the database will be returned. Since this is not very useful, the search facility enables you to specify any combination of species, locality, year, and keywords.

Multiple keywords are separated by a semicolon (e.g. 'Keywords: mimicry; crypsis'). For multiple keywords you can choose to search either for their conjunction (AND), or for their disjunction (OR). Conjuction reduces the selection, disjunction enlarges it.

There are three options for the output. You can choose for photographs, for a list with links, or for a plain list with species matching your search criteria. To enable you to check whether the results really match you search criteria, these are shown before the results.

Advanced search
In the advanced mode, you can enter any taxon that is in the Index (see below). In addition, you can search for any time window and combination of keywords. Finally, you can choose which part of the website you want to have searched.

There are three options for the output. You can choose for photographs, for a list with links, or for a plain list with species matching your search criteria. If you search for a higher taxon (tribe or more inclusive), the list of links also contains references to pages dedicated to taxa above genus level. These pages do not show up if you choose photographs or the plain list as output. If you choose the list with links option for a higher taxon, but you want to see only links to species, you can tick the check box below the taxon field.

This site presents photos in two different contexts. First, in the 'systematic part' I organize photos in a systematic fashion, roughly in line with current classification. Second, in the 'selections' I present photos from a particular season or locality. These two contexts partially overlap. You can choose which context you want to search. If you choose 'Show: all contexts', the result of your search will contain some photos twice, in either context.

The search is based on matching the required string. So if you enter 'Amsterdam' as location, you also get photos from 'Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen'. (This can be avoided by searching for 'Amsterdam,'). Also, I sometimes present photos in blocks with shared additional information. All photos from such a block may show up if the additional information matches your search criteria. So it is always wise to check whether the results really match you search criteria. To enable this, the search criteria are shown before the results.

Finally, you can search for species shared by several localities - 'shared' in the sense that I present photos from both localities for those species. This is a rather different type of searching than that outlined above; you are now looking for species rather than photos. As a result, the output can only be presented as a plain list. If you choose the plain list option, radio buttons appear for conjunctive (AND) or disjuctive (OR) search; the deafult is disjunctive search. Only conjunctive search yields a list of species from which I present photos from both localities.

This index provides a systematically organized access to photo's of the insect species I focus on. I did not pursue a stricly phylogenetically valid classification; rather, I tried to find an acceptable compromise between phylogenetic rigor and usability.

For the higher levels of the Hymenoptera I use the traditional classification; the discongruence between this and a phylogenetically sound classification is still bearable. For the Diptera I roughly follow Yeates & Wiegmann 1999 (Congruence and Controversy: Toward a higher-level phylogeny of the Diptera. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 44: 397 - 428). Finally, I adopted the higher-level classification of the Lepidoptera as implemented by Fauna Europea.

The numbers in parentheses is the number of species of the pertinent taxon you can here find photographs of. This overview only represents photo's of insects identified minimally at genus level. Species names in brown color refer to photo's made in Australia.