Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

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Markup

What is markup?

Markup refers to special instructions you can include in your posts that enhance the rendering in some way. You might want to bold, italicize, include a link, or display a thumbnail, for example.

The 'M' in 'HTML' refers to markup and you can indeed use a small subset of HTML here.

BBCode is another popular markup language pioneered by phpBB and now supported by various types of forum packages. You may use a subset of that here as well and will probably find that easier than HTML.

Finally, there is markup unique to this site that eases linking to submitted images via thumbnails as well as citing submitted references.

What HTML and BBCode markup are allowed?

HTML: <a> <b> <dd> <dl> <dt> <i> <li> <ol> <u> <ul> <strike>
BBCode: [b] [i] [u] [color] [url] [list] [email]

Unless you are already with HTML you should probably stick to BBCode. The BBCode Guide should answer all your questions about using BBCode on this site.

The lists of allowable tags along with the link to the BBCode Guide are always conveniently displayed just below the comment entry form.

How can I include a link to another page on the web?

Check the BBCode Guide for complete details, but here's a few examples.

[url]http://bugguide.net[/url]
http://bugguide.net

[url=http://bugguide.net]BugGuide.Net Home Page[/url]
BugGuide.Net Home Page

How can I easily reference a book from the guide in my posts?

To avoid having to type out the name of the book each time and to make your references unambiguous we have an easy citation markup technique.

First, ensure the book has been previously submitted to the guide. If not, you'll want to add it and you should do that in the most appropriate place in the guide.

You'll need to know the guide citation number for the book. View the page for that book and look for the "cite:" label. To avoid looking these numbers up each time you may wish to lightly pencil this number in the front of your books.

You might also wish to periodically print a list of all the submitted books and keep that handy. You can always find the current list
here. Sort as desired and note the link at the bottom of the page to a printer friendly version.

Whenever you wish to cite a book just type [cite:#] or [cite:#,page] where # is the citation number and page is a page number. The page number will only show up in the text that normally appears after briefly hovering over a link with the mouse cursor.

The citation will appear as a footnote type reference that links to the page for that book. Multiple citations on the same page are fine and each book will automatically be assigned a unique number for the page or comment you're viewing.

As an example, to cite Arnett's American Insects (1) as just done there, you'd type [cite:2489]. Note that hovering over the citation with your mouse displays the title, author, and page number (if included) for the book.

How can I create a clickable thumbnail to an image on the site?

For this you'll need the photo number which appears just to the top left of each image when you view it (the same number appears at the end of the URL for that image).

To include a thumbnail link to an image in your text simply type [thumb:#], where # is the photo number.

Here's an example. Hover over the thumbnail and note the URL includes the photo number.

[thumb:1421]