Meet the extraordinary creatures
living right beneath our feet.
Practical habits for finding, photographing, and identifying small wildlife without turning a quiet encounter into a disturbance.
Warm, still mornings bring pollinators to open flowers. Sunny path edges invite basking butterflies and dragonflies. After dusk, porch lights and a white sheet can reveal moths and other nocturnal visitors—observe briefly and switch lights off when you are done.
Start with the whole animal: number of legs, antenna shape, wing position, body proportions, markings, and behavior. Add habitat, location, and season. Color alone is rarely enough, and photographs cannot always support a species-level identification.
“Bug” is used here in the everyday sense. True bugs are Hemiptera; spiders are arachnids with eight legs rather than six.
Photograph animals where you find them. Do not pull apart nests, peel loose bark, trample host plants, or handle an unfamiliar species for a better angle. Give stinging insects, egg cases, webs, and colonies extra space.
Card safety notes describe ordinary observation, not personal medical risk. Seek professional medical help for severe symptoms or a suspected serious allergic reaction.
Keep the original date and location, add several clear photographs, and note behavior or habitat you could see directly. If the animal is sensitive, use a platform’s location-obscuring controls rather than publishing a precise site.
Record an observation on iNaturalistThe Chinese mantis is usually larger and often shows a pale stripe along the folded wings. The European mantis is smaller and has a dark bull’s-eye mark on the inner base of each grasping foreleg. Green versus brown does not separate them reliably.
This edition presents 201 documented species for Wisconsin. It is a field-friendly selection, not a complete state checklist or a live-sighting feed. Each species card links to an identification reference, occurrence records, photo credit, and reusable image license.