Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
v belov, Contributing Editor
E-mail address:
vmarfus {at} gmail
Contact:
When you contact me offline, make sure to include links to the item(s) in question. I may disregard Qs about household insects and take my time to reply.
Biography:

I do not automatically subscribe to submissions I comment: please contact me directly if you see any of your specific questions unanswered for at least two weeks.
I do not take "data points" into consideration when deciding to frass images, unless they reflect unpublished state records or expand BG data considerably; records should be based on preserved specimens; photographs are inadequate evidence.
MS in entomology, with a bias towards obscure, uncharismatic taxa. I stay away from those groups where one may expect species to have common names. Most of what I know about the Nearctic fauna I owe to this site and people I have met here.

Useful BG sources: Experts | Markup | Online taxonomy references | Where Do I Post It? | Measurement | Photo voucher program
BG Wish Lists: Aquatic Orders | Heteroptera | Coleoptera | Families, major orders
How collected specimens should look (Ted MacRae's collection) | Example of a dedicated collecting effort (3,500 beetle spp. found in a single county by Karl Stephan)
Latin to English

"For every complex problem, there is a straightforward solution that is clear, concise, and incorrect."

Images posted since Apr 2017 have been kindly taken for BugGuide by
Xanthe Shirley

The images posted before are not mine (see copyright info under each one), and I cannot authorize their use. Please contact copyright owners. Any errors in the original submission forms are mine.
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I immensely appreciate the generosity of those who make their photographs available online for everybody to use, no strings attached, so we can fill the gaps in the guide. Special thanks to those who go out of their way to take pictures for BugGuide upon my requests.

3548 images submitted by this contributor
Guide pages submitted by this contributor