Cryptic Critter

Test your invertebrate knowledge and win a prize! If you know the species name of the invertebrate shown below please complete the form below to enter. Closest to the correct answer wins the coveted Critter Cup.

Well done to Bob Thompson all the way from Salt Lake County Public Works in the USA for correctly identifying last month's Cryptic Critter which was Hydropsyche saxonica.

Those of you who didn’t get last month’s critter might be interested in checking out our new and exciting page on our website called ‘Cryptic Critter Id Tips’. After each competition we post an article, written by one of our taxonomy experts, which will provide some professional tips on identifying the tricky species within that particular family. These tips will provide new or supplementary information to that provided in the standard texts. We believe that accurate species level data are essential to underpinning proper monitoring and management of the environment and that these specialist skills should be fostered through the sharing of expertise. We hope to cover all of the BMWP scoring families eventually and you’ll have to keep checking each month if you want the full set….. so let’s see how we get on!

Please get in touch by posting your comments about our id tips and any extra tips that you might like to add. We hope that this will be a lively forum of discussion for taxonomists and a useful source of information and encouragement for novice taxonomists.

So last month’s Cryptic Critter was from the Hydropsychidae family.

Cryptic Critter ID Tips