Before pursuing any study of insects, it’s an excellent idea to get an insect field guide. A list of these guides can be bought from your local bookstores and many of these guides probably can be found in your local or school library or somehow found on science books you already have purchased. Field guides do more than just match pictures and names of insects; some guides even explain the traits that distinguish insects from each other, explain insect’s life cycles and behaviors and usually describe how to collect, preserve, and rear insects.
Once you have an insect field guide, try to become familiar with the proper names of insects. Every experiment involving live animals should include not only the correct scientific name of each organism involved but also an explanation of how that organism fits in with similar organism. With insects, using proper names is especially important because there are so many kinds of insects and so much confusion about their names.
When you research an insect, the best way to be sure that you are gathering information about the correct insect is to use its scientific name. Consulting your field guide is the best way to become familiar with proper insect identification and scientific names.
Anyone in any country can tell exactly what insect you are referring to when you use the scientific of the animal. Even though scientific names sound difficult, they never change.. Common or everyday insect names, on the other hand, are often confusing. For example, dragon flies and damselflies are not really “flies,” since they belong to the order odonata, not Diptera ( which are the true flies ). Furthermore, all insects are not “bugs,” since only true bugs belong to the order Hemiptera. And all insects are not “beetles” because real beetles belong to the order Coleoptera.