Overview of insects seen at home or while traveling in 2026

In May 2025, I attended a tour of a 'wild bee' park in Effretikon organized by Natur und Umwelt Fehraltorf, and immediately bought a book about them. Then I felt it was time to promote insects into their own web pages, rather than just add a photo here while birding, without further information about them.

BAFG.ch says there are nearly 30,000 kinds of insects in Switzerland (and 40-60,000 is also possible). (The Smithsonian Institution says some 900 thousand different kinds of living insects are known. This representation approximates 80 percent of the world's species. The true figure of living species of insects can only be estimated from present and past studies. Most authorities agree that there are more insect species that have not been described (named by science) than there are insect species that have been previously named. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million.) With 400 species of birds, you can try to see and recognize them all, but with the insects that's impossible. In Switzerland there are around 592 species just of bees!

Usually I use Google Lens to identify the insects, and mark them so. (I tried to use a bee ID app, but it told me it was a North American bee that doesn't exist in Europe, whereas if you tell Google that the photo is from Switzerland, it confirms that the insect is seen here.) Google Lens is probably correct 80-90% of the time, and it pays to compare the photo with Google's suggestions.