This book is over an inch thick and contains 16 color plates of insects and hundreds of black and white drawings ranging from collection equipment to insect body parts. It's an excellent resourse for the fly fisherman without providing a debilitating level of detail. Additionally, it provides a nice cross-reference list of insect latin names with their common names. It's a good all around book that provides more than just basic aquatic insect information.

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Product Description

Aquatic Biology and Natural History are subjects of interests to many, whether they be related to one's vocational education, one's avocation, or purely to one's appreciation for the living order of the world. This book has been written not only for entomologists, ecologists, and students of aquatic entomology, but also for sport fishermen, naturalists, and environmental assessment specialists. For those who may not have some vested interested in nature and ecology, this book will provide a pictorial introduction to some of the most fascinating life forms on earth and, hopefully, "wet" the appetite for understanding the aquatic insects, their environment, and their relationship to human life.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88931 in Books
• Published on: 1983-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

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Customer Reviews

You'll Never Go Back in the Water Again

Are we talking about Jaws?

Nope. Bugs.

And not just any bugs. These bad boys are terrifying.

For instance we learn about the larvae of the spongilla (rhymes with Godzilla) fly. These "soft-bodied, bristled forms" are equipped with "mouthparts...highly modified into a needle like sucking apparatus".

Yikes! What do these things suck on???

Then there is the giant water bug (Family Belostommatidae) complete with raptorial forelegs with one or two claws each. Clearly excited by these revolting monsters, the author writes, "These spectacular bugs are also known colloquially by several names: (1) fish killers, because they are voracious and will attack small fishes and other small animals such as ducklings; (2) electric light bugs, because dispersing adults are often attracted to lights at night, often far from water; and (3) toe biters, for obvious reasons".

OK - you're beginning to get the idea.

There are 448 pages of this stuff, complete with magnified illustrations and a lurid set of overly lifelike color plates, astoundingly introduced with a quotation from the poem Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Glory to God for dappled things...").

It must be said that this book contains much entomological science (of interest to I'm not sure whom), as well as tidbits of information that will add to the arsenal of the most committed of fly fishermen only.

Recommended for these constituencies - otherwise open at your own risk.

Excellent insects!
I am very pleased with this text, as an up and coming fisheries biologist, I hope to use it in my future.

book review
This book is very detailed and gives accurate descriptions of all aquatic insects. The pictures with in each chapter also depict what the specimen look like. With all the information on the aquatic insects that is provide by this book it would be hard to believe that there is a better book out there.