Product Details
Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Kaufman Field Guides)

Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Kaufman Field Guides)
By Eric R. Eaton, Kenn Kaufman

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Product Description

Many insects are difficult even for the experts to identify. In the new Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, readers will find a wealth of information on the amazing observable behaviors of insects and their fascinating life histories. Naturalists Kenn Kaufman and Eric R. Eaton use a broad ecological approach rather than overly technical terms, making the book accessible and understandable for everyone. The lively and engaging text emphasizes the insects that are most likely to catch our attention but includes information on all groups that can be recognized. The guide is lavishly illustrated, with more than 2,350 digitally enhanced photographs representing every major group of insects found in North America north of Mexico. Comprehensive yet compact, authoritative yet easy to understand, this is the perfect guide for anyone who wants to know more about the fascinating and diverse insects of North America.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #15431 in Books
  • Brand: Peterson Books
  • Published on: 2007-02-28
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
  • Binding: Turtleback
  • 392 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
ERIC EATON is a writer and naturalist who has studied insects for most of his life.

Kenn Kaufman is a legend among birders. At sixteen he hitchhiked back and forth across North America, traveling eighty thousand miles in a year, simply to see as many birds as he could; he came back to tell the story in KINGBIRD HIGHWAY. A field editor for AUDUBON and a regular contributor to every major birding magazine, he is the youngest person ever to receive the Ludlow Griscom Award, the highest honor of the American Birding Association. His natural history pursuits have taken him to all seven continents, but he has made a special study of North American birds. His books include LIVES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, the PETERSON FIELD GUIDE TO ADVANCED BIRDING, and the FOCUS GUIDE TO BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. He resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Pretty Pictures, Not Enough Substance.3
Alas, a good insect field guide is hard to come by. When I ordered the Kaufman guide I was optomistic that it could replace the badly outdated Peterson's guide; sadly this is not the case.

For a neophyte looking to ID your common backyard bugs this would suffice. There are plenty of wonderful pictures that can't otherwise be found in printed form. But for a serious student of entomology this 'guide' is of minimal use. There is virtually no information given to help in IDing a specimen. The guide goes with a purely visual approach which is simply not efficient for studying the great diversity of North American Hexapoda; unfortunately there is still no good choice for an up-to-date compact guide. For exhaustiveness, try picking up a copy of Borror & Delong's.

Even with its faults, I would still recommend picking this one up. The Kaufman guide is a good value, even if it will only be useful for the weekend entomologists out there.

Beautiful, Great for a Backyard Entomolgist5
This Field Guide sticks to the same tried and true format as the other Kaufman Field Guides (Birds, Butterflies, and Mammals). Every odd page is packed with digitally touched-up pictures of various insects and the even pages contain brief descriptions of the species/family, their habits, etc... Given the enormity of the insect fauna in North America north of Mexico (the region covered by this guide) it is obvious that a field guide such as this is not going to be able to cover but a fraction of what is out there. Additionally the target audience is not entomologists but rather more causal insect and nature lovers. As a result the selection of insects that are covered is limited. The authors in the introduction state that the guide focuses on "naked-eye entomology".

There are a few pages in the beginning devoted to non-insect invertebrates (spiders, millipedes, ...). It would have been nice if this section was a bit more comprehensive, then again maybe this foreshadows a future Kaufman Spiders field guide!

The pictures are all very nice and the book overall is very pleasing to the eye. The cover and binding seem like they will stand up to field use. Overall I am very pleased with this book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in insects.

Great Photos Not Much Else3
The pictures in this book are wonderful, the info is solid, but where are distriution maps, or any helpful info for finding the specimen? There is the occasional "It occurs in most of the mideastern states" or something along that line, but thats not narrow enough for me, plus all the info on the insects is just a paragraph or two about that insect family, not really specifing on individuals. All in all its a very nice book, but I guess I was looking forward to more, and I was let down, but I would still recommend it to anyone who is interested in seeing beautiful insect pictures and learning the very basic information about them.