How to Use This Site

It’s pretty simple really. If you have a specimen with my name on it, simply do a search on this site for the date that it was collected on. The search box is in the top right corner of every pageview on the site. The date style is 6 figure, month-day-year – like this: 060207. That will bring you to the day that the specimen was collected. From there you can see exactly where I was collecting that day, the weather, maybe a picture or two, the list of what I caught and where everything went.

Search by Location or Name

You can also search the site for locations or specific insects by either the scientific name or common name. For each entry I list the name of the closest town that would be on a map and both the scientific and common names for each specimen. For common names I will use what ever name is in the reference book that I am using. I know that common names are variable, so that if you are looking for something specific and don’t know the scientific name, the common name can be hit or miss.

Google Earth and Maps

I love Google Earth and use it for everything. It is available here and is a free program. Google Earth is basically a complete view of earth made up of satellite images. You can view specific places by name, get lattitues and longitudes and you can generally just swoop around looking at various places. I use it live with a GPS unit to see exacly where I am when travelling and to record where I am collecting. I use the free version of a program called GooPs which is available here to interface with my GPS. I found out how to use Google Earth live with a GPS unit form this site. For each entry I try to provide a picture from Google Earth showing the collecting site and also a link to the google map that you can click on to see in your own version of Google Earth. If you need help with any of this, just shoot me an email and I’ll see if I can help.

Weather Data

I will also try to include the weather data for the collecting location in each entry. I get my weather information from the WeatherOffice at Enviroment Canada. You can see current weather data for any location in Canada by clicking here or past weather data from the Climate Data Online section of that site.

Specimen ID’s

I try to ID everything I catch. However, on occasion either my ID is bad, I am unable to ID a specimen, or the current information on that specimen is not clear (i.e. the Azure complex.) I have listed the field books that I generally use in the Reference Page. If you have an incoreectly ID’d insect that I caught or you see something here where the ID is incorrect please contact me to clairify it. I do not pretend to be any sort of taxonomist so pleae don’t hold me to that standard.