Class Insecta - Insects

Be prepared to be amazed at this wonderful site. Within minutes I had downloaded a list of all Dragonflies and Damselflies recorded from my county. State lists are here too.

For any species, you can view a map of your state, with counties shown and a dot in the counties where the species occurs. You can even view a map of the whole USA and Canada with a dot shown for each record.

Last year as this project was in its final phases, I contributed all my county records. Now everyone can contribute their records on-line. Photographic records will be vetted by experts and if the experts agree the ID is right they will accept the record. The site is affiliated with DSA, the chief dragonfly society in North America.

Dave Czaplak of Maryland, USA, has some very good pages on Moths and Butterflies, (http://odolep.com/) but the most impressive parts of his site are on odonata--so I wanted to be sure to put a link in that category. (I've put as the main link above his page on damselflies.) He has done some beautiful drawings of damselfly abdomens--very useful in identification.

The pages on odonates are:
ID Page for Mosaic Darners in MD
ID Page for River Cruisers in MD

Has a variety of resources, including a checklist of world odonata.

Good introduction to anatomy, etc. on the web.