Creating accessible resources for insect identification: The Lepidoptera case study

Lepidopterans are essential to agriculture, and understanding how to identify them is valuable to agriculture professionals. The terminology used in dichotomous keys and similar resources is often difficult to understand, especially for people with no formal entomology education. Thus, our objective was to create a resource that aimed to make lepidopteran identification easier. The resource created had two elements: a slideshow presentation on lepidopteran anatomy and associated vocabulary, and a short reference booklet with much of the same information. Both resources will be freely available on the Oregon IPM Center site under IPM Education (agsci.oregonstate.edu/oipmc/ipm-education). This project is meant to be an accessible, easy-to-follow resource that could help agriculture professionals identify important Lepidoptera species. This information will be available in English and Spanish.