ALL ABOUT SPECIES SEARCHING

Moose (Alces alces), photo by Peter Llewellyn

E-Fauna BC provides both general information on the types of wildlife found in BC, and species-specific information. General information is provided in our information pages, while species-specific information is provided in our atlas pages. Our information pages are accessed by the menu on the left. You can view an atlas page using one of the following methods:

1) Use the drop down menus on the home page to access species groups. Clicking on a species will take you to a list of atlas pages for all species in the group. OR

2) If you know which species page you would like to view, then type the name in our Quick Search boxes on the home page. OR

3) You can used our Advanced Search feature on the home page (and also linked to in the menu at the top of this page) to search for a single species, or to call up special groups of species (e.g. red-listed species).

4) You can access our atlas page directly from the photo gallery. Just click on the link on the species name.

Search tips

If you search using our search boxes and obtain no results, there may be several reasons for this:

• While we have atlas pages for many wildlife groups now available, we do not yet have coverage for all wildlife species in BC. Use the drop down menus on the home page to learn which wildlife groups presently have atlas pages.

• If you search using a common name, and get no return, this may be because common names are very variable. We may not have the common name you are using in our database.  We do have many synonyms, but there are so many variations that we are unlikely to cover them all.  Try searching for variations on the common name.  You can find variations on the web.

• Scientific names, too, vary. The species you are searching for may be known by a new scientific name and this is likely to happen more often as the experts update the taxonomy of a species. If you search and get no results, then try searching for the latin name on the web and check for other possible scientific names or synonyms.  

• If you are uncertain of the species name for your animal, you can conduct a search using a more generic common name, such as "bat".  This will return a list of all species found in BC with this term in the common name. You can then browse through the list. You can also conduct a similar search using the family or genus name, and browse the resulting list.