How to Use This Guide
This digital field guide is a “key” to identifying common wasps found at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center.
Biologists use identification keys to identify organisms. Keys generally focus on one type of organism, in a restricted geographic area, such as: the trees of Alpine, Texas; or the snakes of the Trans Pecos; or wildflowers of the Big Bend—here we focus on the wasps found in the Botanical Gardens at the Nature Center. This key works in a series of steps, each step presents choices. The steps are in the form of couplets, and the choices are leads. A couplet is a set of two (or sometimes more) leads. Each lead is a description of a group of wasps.
Generally speaking, the goal of using this guide is to identify a wasp you are interested in. To do that you will need a wasp to look at. Maybe you have taken a photo, or made a sketch, or maybe you are carrying this digital key into the field with you. By some means, you will need to be able to look at a wasp to identify it. And, sometimes we use a key, not to identify a specific specimen, but to learn more about the possible specimens we might see in an area.
To identify a specimen:
So, with the wasp or wasp image in front of you, start at couplet 1. Read both leads. Decide which description most closely fits your specimen. Then, click on the "Go to" link for that description. You will either be clicking on a link which guides you to another couplet, in which case you will be presented with two (or sometimes more) leads, or you will be clicking on a wasp name.
If the link you are clicking is for another couplet, proceed as above, reading all the leads and deciding which most closely matches your specimen. Continue in this way until you are presented with a "Go to" link that is a wasp name. In a perfect world you will click on the wasp name, be taken to a page with more photos of the wasp, in depth description, and natural history information. Here you will say, Ah Hah! This is my wasp! If this happens, congratulations, you have just identified your first wasp! However, if when you reach the wasp name page, you realize that your specimen is clearly not the wasp described, don’t be discouraged. Go back to the key—sometimes starting over at the beginning is the best strategy—and work through the key again. Using keys to identify wasps, or any other organisms, takes a bit of practice.
>> Proceed to the Wasp Field Guide
