An easy to use guide book for beginner naturalists and nature educators that introduces us to some of the common insects and spiders of Bengaluru City. The book takes a peek into their fascinating characteristics and behaviours, and the spaces these six and eight-legged animals inhabit.
Explore the hidden world of insects and spiders in Bengaluru with this specially curated guide for the beginner and curious naturalist, and for nature educators to use as a free and open-source education and outreach tool. From community parks and forests, lakes, vibrant gardens and human built up spaces, Bengaluru is home to a remarkable diversity of insects and spiders using these spaces and habitats. This easy to carry around guide book invites you to pause, observe, and marvel at the remarkable invertebrate biodiversity thriving around us even in our cities.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced naturalist, a curious student, or a nature enthusiast, this book will be your perfect companion.
Collaborating Organisations: Nature Conservation Foundation, EcoEdu, Bengaluru Sustainability Forum Small Grants Programme.
We have limited hard copy prints for educators and naturalists to use as part of their outreach work. We have uploaded the high resolution web version of the full book for anyone to access, download and use for free.
This work is licensed to Vena Kapoor, Priya Venkatesh, Vaidya R., and Bengaluru Sustainability Forum 2024 under a CC-BY-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
This book is open-source and free to use, download and reproduce as an educational and not-for-profit resource, but please remember to acknowledge and mention the authors and BSF.
Photographs were donated by various photographers who kindly gave us permission to use their images for this book since this is a free educational tool.
This project was originally conceived as a set of 50 Flash Cards featuring common insects and spiders found in Bengaluru city. As we began work on it, we realised that compiling the species and information in 50 cards would not do any justice to the diversity of life forms that we had been spotting and documenting. Once we had compiled the content, with inputs from fellow naturalists and educators we decided to change the format from flash cards to a pocket-sized easy to use book.
Project personnel: Vena Kapoor, Priya Venkatesh (Eco Edu)