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A quick explanation of the some of the Lucid menu buttons follows. Use Help on the Lucid menu bar for a detailed explanation of all buttons.

Restart icon Restart: If you have finished an identification and wish to start another, click on the restart button.

Prune Redundants icon Prune Redundants: After selecting some character states other character states are no longer valid for the taxa left in the taxa remaining window. Use the prune redundants button to discard these character states so that you are not wasting time and effort on characters that will not help to identify the insect.

Best icon Best: This button is very important for working your way through the key. After making a selection and narrowing down the taxa remaining you can use the "Best" button. The character which will help the most in narrowing down the taxa remaining even more will appear at the top of the characters available window. The second best character will appear below this. Since this "best" character is statistically determined, it may not always be the best character for you, so look at the list and choose the easiest character. Best can be chosen at every step in an identification.

Bingo: Some character states listed in characters available may apply to only one of the remaining taxa, hence choosing such a state would immediately reduce the taxa remaining list to a single taxon. Such character states are called “bingo” states. To see a list of bingo states, click the bingo button on the toolbar. This button is best used when only a few taxa remain.

Similarites and Differences icon Similarities and Differences: Choose two taxa and look at the similarities and differences between them. If you had two insects and could not separate them, you can look to see what character might be useful for you to make a decision.

General Information icon General Information: In some keys additional information has been added. Check the general Information box for any extra information.

Some of the other important features of Lucid that can be accessed from the top menus include:

Slide show icon found in the Taxa menu Slide Show: Choose Taxa, Slide Show, All Remaining Taxa, to view images associated with all of the remaining insects in the key.

Describe: Tells you how all characters and states were defined by the author of the key.

Use the Help in Lucid to fully explain all of the features available.