Introduction

The background and history regarding the development of the original published IRRI key to rice insect pests and their natural enemies, and the subsequent development of a single online key involving 862 insect and spider species, is provided here.

Since potential users of these keys are likely to range from those with limited to considerable familiarity with the taxonomy of rice insects and spiders, the original online key has now been re-published as a set of 13 keys. For those not familiar with insect taxonomy, a short key to insect and spider orders has been developed, allowing them to determine the order to which a specific insect/spider belongs and to then open a key to species within that order. More experienced users, likely to know the order to which a specific specimen belongs, can go directly to a key to that order.