Garden bugs and beasties guide

Head down your garden and peer among the flowers, grasses and plant pots. You will find an amazing range of little creatures. From shieldbugs to spiders, from froghoppers to flower beetles, the FSC Garden bugs and beasties fold-out guide features the commonest minibeasts you will find in a garden.

Our colourful and informative garden insect guide is a great place to start identifying the garden bugs you will find in the UK. The Garden Bugs and Beasties Guide features clear colourful illustrations, making insect identification fun and easy to learn. On the reverse is a text description of all the featured UK insects, including interesting facts and identification tips with directions for how to identify the insects you find.

These minibeasts are invertebrates, animals without a backbone. Some invertebrates like slugs are soft bodied. Others have a hard exoskeleton and three or more pairs of legs. These are the arthropods, a very diverse large and diverse group of animals.

You can find minibeasts just about anywhere in the garden. Our insect guide even includes photos and advice on where to look! Check long grass and bushes for spider webs. Shieldbugs may be perched among the leaves, and froghopper nymphs hidden in frothy piles of cuckoo spit. Examine the vegetable garden for tell tale signs of slugs and snails – shiny dried mucus trails to show where they were travelling. Holes in plant leaves show that something has been feeding. Have a look and see if you can find the culprit. Look on young plant stems and under leaves for aphids. Butterflies, bees and hoverflies can all be seen visiting flowers. If you look closely at the flower heads you may find earwigs and small flower beetles.

Lift pots and stones to find minibeasts sheltering underneath like slugs, earthworms and woodlice. The compost heap will be home to the recyclers – animals feeding on decaying plant material. You will also find predators like centipedes and rove beetles out hunting for a meal. Also don’t forget to look among the short grass in the lawn. You might find beetles scurrying through or earthworms wriggling, especially after rain

Our popular Garden Bugs and Beasties field guide measure 24.5cmx17.5cm and is extremely lightweight so makes the perfect identification aid for popping in your bag when heading outside. All wildlife identification guides are laminated, meaning they are showerproof for use outside and can be wiped clean.

If you are interested in finding out more about insects, why not get involved with www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk ?