Pycnopsyche gentilis McLachlan (Trichoptera:Limnephilidae) is a widespread caddisfly whose larvae are valued for their uses in bioassessment, fly fishing, and jewelry-making. We used P. gentilis as an exemplar species to demonstrate the new Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The EOL project brings together several of the world’s leading natural history institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Field Museum, Harvard University, the Marine Biological Laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library consortium. Its mission is to construct a web site for each of the approximately 1.8 million species now known to be present on Earth. Species pages will present information suitable for the general public and contain, for example, the scientific and common names by which the species is known and has been known in the past, an illustration, a range map, habitat and natural history, conservation status and human uses, and how to identify it. We demonstrate these features for P. gentilis and discuss how the NABS community can get involved with EOL to create web sites for other aquatic organisms.