Insects in the Prairie

Internet Resources

BugGuide Identification, images, & information for insects, spiders & their kin for the United States & Canada. Great to access from your mobile device, while you explore the Decorah Prairie and Butterfly Garden! Here are photos from the site that were taken in the Decorah Community Prairie. Add your photos...

Insects of Iowa Identification of birds and insects in Iowa. How to use...

Xerces Society works to protect invertebrates and their habitats

Bug Life Cycles Insects have some of the most interesting and complex life cycles of any animals. In many cases only one stage of their lives is familiar to us, and we know very little about the others. This site is a place to document and learn about the life cycles of wild insects and spiders found in North America.

Iowa Odes (Dragonflies & Damselflies)

Moth Photographers Group

Insect Fauna of the Tallgrass Prairie A pictorial catalogue of the insects identified from tall-grass prairies at three sites in western Minnesota.

Books

Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America by Eric R. Eaton & Kenn Kaufman. Comprehensive yet compact, authoritative yet easy to understand, this is the perfect guide for anyone who wants to know more about the fascinating and diverse insects of North America. A great pocket guide to carry with you in the Prairie.

The Butterflies of Iowa by Dennis Schlicht, John Downey, & Jeffrey Nekola. This beautiful and comprehensive guide, many years in the making, is a manual for identifying the butterflies of Iowa as well as 90 percent of the butterflies in the Plains states.

Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy. "If you cut down the goldenrod, the wild black cherry, the milkweed and other natives, you eliminate the larvae, and starve the birds. This simple revelation about the food web—and it is an intricate web, not a chain—is the driving force in Bringing Nature Home.” —The New York Times

Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner. This lavishly illustrated guide will enable you to identify the caterpillars of nearly 700 butterflies and moths found east of the Mississippi.

Discovering Moths; Nighttime Jewels in Your Own Backyard by John Himmelman. The intricacy of moths' life cycle, their importance in nature, and how just a tiny handful of the many moth species are truly pests to humans. He tells how to attract moths with lights and bait, when and where to observe them, and how best to photograph these tiny subjects. Entertaining personal anecdotes and short profiles of some of the country's foremost mothers add human interest.

A Field Guide to the Insects of America North of Mexico (Peterson Field Guides) by Donald J. Borror & Richard E White

Prairie Investigators

Using Plants and Animals to Uncover the Mystery of the Prairie (downloadable pdf) Explorers and pioneers described their first views of the prairie using words such as "abundant," "luxurious," "magnificent," "gorgeous masses of variant beauty," birds singing "their songs of jubilee." They reported seeing fox, wolves, reptiles, and badgers roaming free. If we investigate the plants and animals of the prairie, we might reveal the connections between the creatures and this amazing habitat.

Iowa Insects Mailing List (for Midwest Insects)

The Iowa Insects Mailing List provides a forum for those interested in Iowa's insects and, more generally, invertebrates, their identification and ecoloy. Its purpose is to encourage novices who are trying to expand their knowledge about the incredible world of insects. Another objective is to support eh Iowa Native Plant Society. This list is owned by Kiana Horon and MJ Hatfield, managed by MJ Hatfield, and sponsored by the U of Iowa Dept. of Biology.

To subscribe, send an email to listserv@list.uiowa.edu

Leave the subject line blank. Type the message: subscribe Iowa-insects (and/or: subscribe iowa-native-plants)

If you have questions, contact MJ Hatfield at mjhatfield@oneota.org