Arthropedia is an illustrated alphabet of invertebrates and is my homage to the little things that make the world work.

I found most of the featured arthropods in my native county of Norfolk, many in my own garden.”

Vanna Bartlett

My Personal Alphabet of Arthropods

Arthropedia: An Illustrated Alphabet of Invertebrates is my personal celebration, in pictures and text, of the rich diversity of life that sits towards the bottom of the food chain, wisely described as the little things that make the world work.

Amazing Beauty and Diversity

My aim has been to showcase the amazing diversity and beauty of arthropod life. It is a celebration of the rich invertebrate life that can be found, with a little searching sometimes, in the British Isles. Most of the species featured in my book are not particularly rare, indeed a lot have been found in my small suburban back garden, but some have very limited distributions and there are a few extreme rarities that I have been very lucky to have seen. There are no ‘exotics’ as they can all be found (for the time being at least) in Britain, although a couple of my encounters were abroad in Europe. 

Providing Inspiration

I hope my book will whet your appetite and inspire you to go and look at this miniature world and make your own observations and discoveries, to be as enthralled as I am, and to want to contribute in any way to helping our invertebrates. This could be by putting plants for pollinators in a windowbox, gardening more benevolently for wildlife or volunteering in conservation work or monitoring.