Product Description

The only comprehensive guide to insects of the Pacific Northwest, this handy reference is perfect for hikers, fishers, and naturalists. With coverage from southwestern British Columbia to northern California, from the coast to the high desert, it describes more than 450 species of common, easily visible insects and some noninsect invertebrates, including beetles, butterflies and moths, dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, flies, bees, wasps, ants, spiders, millipedes, snails, and slugs. The more than 600 superb color photographs, helpful visual keys, and clear color-coded layout will make this field guide an invaluable resource for nature lovers throughout the region.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #213560 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

From the Publisher
With coverage from southwestern British Columbia to northern California, from the coast to the high desert, this guide features more than 600 color photos and describes more than 450 species of common, easily visible insects.

About the Author
Peter Haggard was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota. In 1972, he received a bachelor's degree in wildlife management from Humboldt State University and since then has worked as a county agricultural inspector in California. During this time he has collected, photographed, and identified thousands of insects of the Pacific Northwest and maintained a database of hundreds of insect species. For many years he has conducted classes and workshops or appeared as a guest speaker for various organizations and at universities and community colleges, among other venues. His topics include insects and plants, in particular, native species; gardening with native and non-native plants; and garden insects and disease pests.

Judy Haggard holds bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from Humboldt State University. After working for state and federal natural resource agencies, she now serves as a consulting wildlife biologist.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

About This Guide

This field guide describes insects that occur in the Pacific Northwest, from southwestern British Columbia to northern California. Most of the species included are native to the Pacific Northwest region; the few that are not native are indicated as introduced in their accounts. Since insects do not recognize state or national boundaries, most of the insects in this book have ranges outside the Pacific Northwest.

There are at least 28,000 (and still counting) species of insects in the Pacific Northwest. We have included in this introductory guide 452 species in 10 orders (there are 30 orders worldwide, but not all occur in the region). And although this is basically a book about insects, we have also included 19 noninsect terrestrial invertebrate species for a sampling of interesting small creatures other than insects that the reader might likely encounter. The criteria Pete used to select the insects were that they had to be (1) common (a species likely to he seen by many people), (2) large enough to photograph well, and/or (3) distinct enough that they can be identified by a photograph. He also took into consideration the kinds of insects in which the public seems to be most interested. In his 33 years with county agricultural commissioner's offices, the insects most frequently brought into the office for identification have been almost exclusively common, large, distinctive beetles, butterflies, and moths. As a consequence, the number of species in this field guide is weighted in favor of a few orders, particularly Coleoptera (beetles) and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths).

One criterion he did not consider as part of the basis for inclusion in this book was the economic or social value of an insect. Much literature in the past has described insects in terms of how they affect humans, either in a positive way because they prey on other insects, or in a negative way because they do harm to crops or the lives of humans or domesticated animals or have been simply seen as pests. Our intent is to present insects for their intrinsic value, as players in natural processes, without the good/bad label.

Pete has underrepresented or omitted several orders of insects, even some that are very common, for a variety of reasons. Some insect groups likely to be encountered in daily life, such as mosquitoes, termites, or ants, are very difficult to identify to species, and many of the species that are small in size cannot be adequately identified by photograph. Many introduced insects that are common, such as honey bees, are not covered because this book emphasizes native species. Some aquatic insects that are well known to anglers, such as caddisflies and mayflies, have been omitted because they are well covered in several books on flyfishing and in the scientific literature; such insects are important to salmon and trout fisheries, but no more important than, say, dragonflies, which are included in this guide. Few household and garden "pests" are dealt with in this book because information about these species is often presented in cooperative extension pamphlets and books on pest control. The economic impacts of insects considered to be agricultural pests are discussed in other books that specifically deal with these species as pests; many of these pest species are nonnative (they have been introduced from Europe and Asia), and, again, this is not a book about pests.

The focus of this guide is the identification of insects (and some non-insect invertebrates). In order to make this guide easy to use, especially for the non-scientist, Pete has used photographs as the basis for the format, with picture-based keys. All the photographs in this field guide were taken with a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, usually handheld with no flash. The slide film used was ISO 50 or 100. All but a few of the photographs are of live insects and taken in the field.

Also for the sake of simplicity, we have attempted to keep the entomological jargon to a minimum. The few entomological terms that we determined needed definition are located in the glossary. However, unlike other field guides that primarily use common names for insects (and non-insect invertebrates), this guide is based on scientific names. We have emphasized scientific names because, as stated previously, they are standardized and more reliable than common names, and many of the insect species in this book do not have a common name or names.

Even so, the scientific name, as well as the classification, of a species may be different depending on which source the reader uses. Name changes can be very frustrating, and perhaps discouraging, to the non-scientist. We have tried to present the most recent classification and the most recent and most commonly used scientific and common names; for the most part, the classification and names used in this field guide are based on Nomina Insecta Nearctica: A Check List of the Insects of North America edited by R. W. Poole and P. Gentili.

The identification portion of this book is separated into two parts, one on the insects and the other on the non-insect terrestrial invertebrates. Within these sections, the groups of species are organized alphabetically, first by order, then by families within the order, and lastly by species within the family. Thus the arrangement of species presented here does not follow a hierarchical type of classification system. The orders are preceded by a picture key to the orders, and each order composed of more than a few families has a picture key to the families within that order (Note: the size of a family or genus refers to the number of species within that family or genus.)

The account for each species is accompanied by a photograph of one or more of its life (developmental) stages and/or a structure (for example, plant gall) associated with it. For many of the species, particularly those of moths and butterflies (order Lepidoptera) and stink bugs (family Pentatomidae, order Hemiptera), Pete has included the immature stage(s) because, in most cases, one is just as likely to find this form of the species as one would the adult; a case in point is moth larvae, which are more likely to be seen than the adults since the adults of many moth species fly at night. Also, during certain times of the year, one can find the larva but not the adult.

Each species account is organized as follows. First is the species name, that is, the scientific name for the species. Although we have provided the most current scientific name, be aware that the name is not written in stone and hence maybe different in other literature. A common name(s) may also be listed under the species name: a species may have multiple common names or none at all. The common name we give is generally the most widely used English name for the species in the literature.

Next follows a description of the distinguishing field marks of one or more life stages of the invertebrate, or, in the case of insect species that induce the formation of galls, the structure of the galls. The description is generally limited to those characteristics that we feel will help the reader identify the insect. If a life stage is not listed, it maybe for one of the following reasons: (1) it is the stage least likely to be encountered in the field, (2) there may be little difference between adult and nymph, or (3) we did not find any information on that stage. This field guide uses the common practice found in other insect field guides, particularly those on butterflies and moths, of indicating the dorsal and ventral sides of an insect's body or wings as "above" and "below," respectively.

Body length and wingspan are the measurements commonly used to indicate the size of an invertebrate. Body length, used for invertebrates other than adult moths and butterflies, is the linear measurement in millimeters from the front of the animal's head (not including antennae) to the tip of its abdomen (not including terminal appendages). This measurement applies to the adult stage of the animal unless otherwise noted. For adult moths and butterflies, this book employs the common practice found in other field guides of using wingspan to compare the sizes of the different species of moths and butterflies. Wingspan is the linear measurement in millimeters from tip to tip of the outstretched forewings. This section may include the length, width, or height of galls.

The food source of one or more life stages (for example, adult, larva) of the species is given next. If a stage is not listed, we did not find any information regarding the food source or the animal does not feed at that stage. The common name (if any) and scientific name of host plants are listed.

The "found" section presents the general distribution of the species in the Pacific Northwest region (and may also indicate distribution outside the region). This part of the account may also include microhabitat information. Additional information about the species, including other scientific or common names of the species that might be encountered in other books, may be provided at the end of the account.

Searching for Insects

Insects can be found almost everywhere; however, certain habitats are more likely to yield a larger number and a wider variety of insects. The best places to look are on plants, where most insects will probably be found on the flowers and leaves; others may be on or in the stem, bark, wood, roots, or inside galls or the fmits or seeds of flowering plants.

Some species of insects can be found on the ground, in leaf litter, under the bark of dead or dying trees or logs, or under debris such as stones and boards (if these objects are moved, they should be carefully put back where they were found). Other species can be found on or in fungi, dung, or decaying plant or animal material. Many insect species live in or near water, either their entire lives or only during certain stages of their lives.

Although different insect species are active at different times of t...

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Customer Reviews

Nice idea, but very incomplete
First of all, I should acknowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of species of insects, and you can't expect a single book to cover all of them, even for a small area of the globe. That said, this book is still woefully lacking any sense of completeness. It seems to have gone overboard in covering "cute" insects (ten full pages of ladybird beetles, about half the book devoted to butterflies and moths), while leaving some things out completely. Earwigs and silverfish, for example, are entirely absent, as are the various aquatic bugs (water striders, backswimmers) that you find swimming on or under the water in most ponds. And while the book claims to cover some non-insect invertebrates, there's no mention whatsoever of pill bugs or even centipedes.

The organization could use some work, too; it's odd that all the families of Lepidoptera are sorted alphabetically, instead of at least divided first into butterflies vs. moths.

On the bright side, the photographs are excellent.

Yeah, it could be better, but 60 pages of beetle photographs...
Timber Press is usually pretty dependable when it comes to producing regional field guides and Peter and Judy Haggard's new insect guide certainly qualifies as a nice little regional field guide. When placed in a head-to-head against the Lone Pine analog _Bugs of Oregon and Washington_, it wins hands down (Lone Pine can be pretty hit-or-miss ranging from the indispensable _Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast_ and _Amphibians of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia_ to the down right useless _Birds of the Pacific Northwest Coast_).

Where _Bugs_ comes in at 160 pages with only one critter per page illustrated competently by Ian Sheldon, _Insects_ comes in at 295 pages with photographs of several species per page. The front 20% is beetles, easily the most comprehensive and useful section. It includes many of my favorites (_Calligrapha multipunctata_, _Ellychnia hatchi_) though Rain beetles (_Pleocoma_) and the snail-eating _Scaphinotus_ are curiously absent....

The Lepidoptera section is the largest section and includes plenty of caterpillars. The overly linear may find the sorted-by-size format that mixes the moths with the butterflies and discards taxonomic formalities a bit frustrating. There is, however, a key at the front that most non-entemologists will have no trouble using to navigate and since we non-entemologists have no expectations about what the order should be it's okay.

The most interesting section has photos of insect galls from wasps and gall midges. Dragonflies, true flies and most aquatic species (mayflies, stoneflies, etc) are woefully under represented and one gets the impression that the authors just left out species that were too hard to photograph or weren't particularly photogenic. The non-insect invertebrates section seems almost tacked on as an after-thought.

I'm sure that entemology purists will find plenty to complain about, just as ornithology purists complain about what's missing in bird guides and botany purists complain about omissions in plant guides, but for the rest of us- a regional guide with at least 100 beetle photographs will prove to be well worth buying. If Amazon allowed half stars, I'd rate this a 3.5, but since they don't, I'll round up to 4...

an excellent book
This is a very comprehensive, well photographed book. I even found all the oak galls I have on my property. I initially ordered this as a christmas present, and liked it so much I ordered one for myself.