There are many useful websites with information or images that can help in the identification of bark beetles to genus and even to the species level. The following is a selection of some known and used by the author that can be used to reinforce identification and pest information needs.
A Resource for Wood Boring Beetles of the World provides a portal for a variety of websites related to the identification of members of the nine beetle families collectively known as wood boring beetles. The resource focuses on those taxa that bore into and develop within sound wood. Many members of this group are serious pests that may be easily transported in wood or wood products used for packing and shipping. This resource will allow quick, efficient access to a number of Lucid tools with keys, images, and fact sheets to help support identification of this diverse, potentially destructive group of beetles. Note that a number of the websites below are also accessible from the resource but have also been listed here since they apply specifically to bark beetles.
Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health (Bugwood Network) offers a variety of resources related to invasive species, forestry, and agriculture education. The mission of the Center for Invasive Species & Ecosystem Health is to serve a lead role in development, consolidation, and dissemination of information and programs focused on invasive species, forest health, and natural resource and agricultural management through technology development, program implementation, training, applied research, and public awareness at the state, regional, national and international levels.
The Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs No. 6 (1982) Online is the single best reference for this group in the region. "The Bark and Ambrosia Beetles of North and Central America (Coleoptera:Scolytidae): A Taxonomic Monograph" is kindly provided online by the Brigham Young University.
Dr. Atkinson’s “Bark and Ambrosia Beetles” website is primarily directed at persons who are students of the bark and ambrosia beetles. It is full of magnificent scanning electron microscope (SEM) imagery from nearly all the region's genera and many species.
The Bark and Ambrosia Beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) of Louisiana: An Interactive Web-based Key by M. L. Ferro is a Lucid key focused on the bark beetle fauna of the state of Louisiana that can also be useful to other southeastern states. It treats 53 species in 28 different genera.
Bark Beetles of the Southeastern United States is and excellent resource that provides diagnostics to the species level for the southeastern bark beetle fauna. It includes thousands of good photographs and many scanning electron microscope (SEM) images.
Xyleborini ambrosia beetles: an identification tool to the world genera is the first multimedia, internet-based identification tool using the most recent worlk taxonomic classification of the tribe. Xyleborini (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) is the most important and species-rich tribe of ambrosia beetles. The tribe includes more invasive pests than all other ambrosia beetle groups combined and is one of the most frequently intercepted organisms at ports of entry. The tool was authored by leading ambrosia beetle expert Jiri Hulcr and Sarah Smith.
The USDA Cooperative Agricultural Pest Information System (CAPS) offers well illustrated keys to both western and eastern bark beetles (under Taxonomic Services > Screening Aids).
Content last updated February 2011
Website updated February 2023
idtools.org
