A Peterson Field Guide To Insects: America North of Mexico (Peterson Field Guides)

This was mandatory for an insect classification course I took in college. I loved this book in order to learn insect orders and families. I can see myself using this field guide after this course.

At the risk of repeating myself to readers who are searching for an insect field guide, I said in another review:Consider the lucky birders. In North America there are less than 900 species of birds. While some may be only 3 or four inches long, others are measured in feet. New birding guides are issued every year. And while a few species, like the empidonax flycatchers may be difficult to tell apart, all of the species are illustrated in most guides, and 90% are identifiable if the birder gets a good look at them.Now consider the amateur entomologist. There are over 80,000 species of insects in North America. Most insects are relatively small. Telling the difference between species may require examining the vein pattern in wings. The field guides to insects illustrate at most 700 insects. No wonder there are more bird watchers than insect watchers. And no wonder there hasn't been a major insect field guide published since 1981!A field guide to insects then probably can't help you identify most specific species. The authors feel they have done their job if they can help you identify the family.The Peterson guide provided a decision tree just inside the front cover that helped me to identify the order of the insects. The tree also provided the page of the guide where the entries for this order could be found. Next I had to flip through the entries, which are arranged in taxological order, examining each of the black and white drawings to find an insect that most closely resembled my specimen. Occasionally a species listing bore a reference to a color drawing found on collected plates in the center of the book. Occasionally detailed drawing were provided for identification, such as a comparison of the wing venation of a family of bees. This information might have proved useful for identification if I had captured the insect. The drawings also had the arrows that Peterson has developed to highlight significant identification features.I should note that some guides use photographs while others, like Peterson use drawings. My experience is that either method may be more advantageous in a specific case.To find my butterfly-like insect I had to read carefully through the text on the order Leipidoptera to find that skippers could be differentiated by their clubbed antenna. No reference was made to their characteristic pose while perched. I was not able to identify my insect below the family level.My bee seemed closest to a carpenter bee, although without an actual specimen I could not make a final identification.I could not identify my fly as to family.Although a lack of photographs may prove a disadvantage for identifying particular species, I found the black and white drawing usually useful for identifying insect families, although even more illustrations would have been useful for identification. Even though this was what I considered to be the best of the guides I reviewed, I still was not contented with it.Those who prefer photographs to drawings may want to consider the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders". But be warned that like the Peterson Guide, that volume will also be less than satisfactory.

Excelentes condiciones, casi como nuevo.Recomendado. 👌👌👌

I'm an entomologist and I work with this book all the time. It is really helpful in identifying insects to order level and also useful for recognizing families. I was able to Identify families of orders that I'm not yet familiar with (such as Diptera, Wasps)

This is a very helpful book for identifying insects. However, some of the taxonomy is out of date, so you have to check again with another source.

I love this guide. One of the best for insects, this definitely enhanced my learning experience in my entomology course. And now I find myself keeping this book in my bag everywhere I go. Really handy. With insects, you need to take a taxonomic approach to identify between families, this book lays out the differences for easier id. (In some scenarios a magnifying glass or dissecting scope is the most helpful.)

Bought this one because it's part of the Peterson series. Voluminous technical text, LOL, but that's the nature of the beast. I'd like more color plates (there are 16) but the B&W illustrations are decent and use the "diagnostic" arrows to point out significant features. I recommend it, but it's not as "easy" as Peterson's Eastern birds book. :-)

The main problem with insect books is that there are hundreds of thousands of species and any book can only cover a small sampling. Other than 16 color plate pages, all the illustrations are black and white drawings. This was not as useful for identifying unknown species as it could have been.

very informative

Me hubieran gustado más ilustraciones, sin embargo cumple con su cometido

Manque de dessins. Compliqué pour un guide sur les insectes

She is using it a lot for her conservation biology

This was a bit more technical than expected, but overall it provides the information we required.