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Insects: Revised and Updated
This eBook is best viewed on a color device.Enjoy and Learn!Expert Knowledge!Easy-to-Read!This handy guide to the most common, important and showy North American insects will help the novice begin a fascinating study. key to insect groupsMature and immature formsHow insects grow and develop and what they eatHow to find and observe themFull color pictures, nontechnical language, and up-to-date range maps make this a gem of a guide for beginners at any age.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 18, 2024
So, this is a pretty utilitarian and broad guidebook and if you're an average person looking to learn about insects and identify some common species. It does succeed at that but there is a lot more to be said about it. I wish to start with the positives before getting into some of the flaws. In terms of basic structure it works well enough and the art made for this book is beautiful and does a great job illustrating the species.
With that being said what is included in this guide is perhaps the biggest issue. Now I want to be clear it would be impossible for any field guide to include every single species of insect found in the United States let alone the entirety of North America. And admittedly it does a good job if a bit skewed towards the butterflies. But I do think at the minimum every order of insect found in the region (or quite frankly the world) Notable absences include; the Icecrawlers of the order Embioptera, the webspinners of Embioptera, and the angel insects of Zoraptera.
Also, some of the classifications are now outdated, for example Grasshoppers and Roaches are classified within the same group and the Homoptera is still listed as its own order while now it's recognized as a paraphyletic grouping of the Auchenorrhyncha and the Sternorrhyncha.
It also has a very brief overview of insect evolutionary history and they missed the opportunity to show off some extinct forms, despite their claim, no most fossil groups are not identical to modern ones. They also discuss ways they can be observed and other such information which is again fine for what it is.
Despite these flaws it's still a wonderful book for a beginner just keep those things in mind before using it as the be all end all.
With that being said what is included in this guide is perhaps the biggest issue. Now I want to be clear it would be impossible for any field guide to include every single species of insect found in the United States let alone the entirety of North America. And admittedly it does a good job if a bit skewed towards the butterflies. But I do think at the minimum every order of insect found in the region (or quite frankly the world) Notable absences include; the Icecrawlers of the order Embioptera, the webspinners of Embioptera, and the angel insects of Zoraptera.
Also, some of the classifications are now outdated, for example Grasshoppers and Roaches are classified within the same group and the Homoptera is still listed as its own order while now it's recognized as a paraphyletic grouping of the Auchenorrhyncha and the Sternorrhyncha.
It also has a very brief overview of insect evolutionary history and they missed the opportunity to show off some extinct forms, despite their claim, no most fossil groups are not identical to modern ones. They also discuss ways they can be observed and other such information which is again fine for what it is.
Despite these flaws it's still a wonderful book for a beginner just keep those things in mind before using it as the be all end all.
September 24, 2020
I like this retro- feeling book more than super over-produced books like Discovering Bugs. It’s really teaching me and Leo just what we want to know about the classification of common insects. Perhaps a taaaad dry.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews