Insects of San Franscisco Bay Area
Fiery Skipper - Hylephila phyleus
The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a number of insects, including different types of butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, beetles and grasshoppers. You can find them in all types of habitats including urban areas.
Bay Area Insects
The San Francisco Bay Area has a high diversity of insect species because of the diversity of the local environment. The juxtaposition of high insect diversity and an area intensively used by humans led to the first recorded extinction as well as the first efforts to conserve insects in the United States.
There are about a 144 species of butterflies here.
- The San Bruno Elfin (Callophrys mossii) is endemic to the Bay Area.
- The Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is a very special insect which over-winters in large numbers at some Bay Area locations. ...more
The following links lead to comprehensive checklists generated on the Butterflies and Moths of North America website (www.butterfliesandmoths.org), maintained by the Mountain Prairie Information Node in Bozeman, MT. These lists include links to detailed pages for each species, including photographs.
Media
- A selection of useful reference books can be found here - Insect Books ...more
- A nice laminated fold-out, with 22 common local species, is produced by Local Birds (despite its name :-)). It includes favorite larval food and nectar plants. They also have similar guides for Marin County and the Monterey Bay Area.
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- Eddie Dunbar has produced a CD guide to Lake Merritt and Greater Oakland Insects.
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Insect Articles and Links
Butterflies and Moths
- Some common California Butterflies and Mothhs and their food plants - photographs and details about native plants used by adults and larva.
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- Butterflies of Ulistac Natural Area (in Santa Clara) - a list of 20 species, with photographs.
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- Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area (a very incomplete list) - a list of 10 common butterflies with pictures.
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- Imperiled Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area. An article with photographs and descriptions of the Bay Checkerspot, Mission Blue, San Bruno Elfin, and Callippe, Myrtle’s and Behren’s Silverspot Butterflies.
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- A new species of moth - Bucculatrix dominatrix - was discovered in the Bay Area in 1983.
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Other Insects
- odophile.com is a website dedicated to dragonflies and damselflies of the South Bay. It has some beautiful photographs. Much information is still being filled in.
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- BugPeople is an Entomology Outreach program based in Oakland. Their website has many photographs and other resources for studying Bay Area insects.
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