Product Description

From fossils and folklore to life cycles and the latest in digital imaging techniques, A Dazzle of Dragonflies will take you into the far-reaching and sometimes secret world of one of our most beneficial insects. The guides are two of the most experienced and ardent fans of the "mosquitohawk," and your journey will include encounters with poets and prehistoric giants; peeks into hidden, watery universes; side trips to garden ponds and scientific laboratories; and much more. Pioneers in the electronic imaging of insects and creators of the award-winning website Digital Dragonflies, the authors share their spectacular scans of live dragonflies, enhanced with beautiful photographs that showcase them in their natural environment. Imparting a lifelong passion for these remarkable creatures, the authors also ask us to join them in some hands-on activities to increase our awareness of and interaction with dragonflies - from tips on creating a dragonfly garden to instructions for catching, photographing, and scanning them. Get ready to have your eyes opened by this true education about all things "dragonfly."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148134 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Booklist
Dragonflies, those "mosquitohawk" denizens of wetlands, are the subject of this beautiful book. The authors, scientists at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, needed to identify dragonflies while working on a water--quality project. They invented a technique for using a flatbed scanner to create extremely detailed images of living dragonflies, which accurately reproduced their colors and anatomical details, and they created a Web site to display these images. This book grew out of their desire to promote greater awareness and understanding of these aerial predators. The first few chapters cover the folklore and fossil history of dragonflies, along with their natural history and daily lives. Watching dragonflies through binoculars and collecting them for study (much easier said than done!) each receive a section. Two extremely interesting chapters complete the text: one on water gardening to attract dragonflies, including rearing larvae in containers, and the other on photographic and digital scanning techniques. This is a passionate look at a ubiquitous group of insects. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
". . . a large, beautiful book that contains well-written information about dragonfly natural history, prehistory, and folklore." -- Ro Wauer

". . . this volume provides a richly illustrated A to Z coverage of odonates. The large format, hardcover edition is relatively inexpensive for a book of its quality, with much to offer both amateur and professional biologists." -- The Quarterly Review of Biology, December 2006

"A Dazzle of Dragonflies will nevertheless provoke curiosity, inspiring more people to watch and wonder at these amazing insects." -- Kim Long, Bloomsbury Review (Nov/Dec 2005, p. 20)

"The book's primary impact is its attractive design, with 130 large, color images laid out in all their detail and glory. It is worth the reasonable purchase price simply to feast the eyes on these spectacular pictures. But there is much more . . . This is a marvelous production. Get it, absorb the pictures, read it, and go out and enjoy the dazzling world of dragonflies." -- Great Plains Research, November 2006

"The volume was designed to delight and inform amateur enthusiasts, and the remarkably detailed photographs do just that." -- American Scientist, August 2005

Customer Reviews

Beautiful!
As soon as I heard this book was being released, I was dying to buy it. The authors have pioneered a method of scanning dragonflies on standard flatbed scanners and have produced some magnificent images of these insects, which they display online. As an entomologist and a woman fascinated by dragonflies, I have always admired their work and knew this book would be gorgeous if nothing else. I was not disappointed. The photos and scans of dragonflies in this book are spectacular. Even people who are squeamish of bugs could learn to appreciate the beauty of these magnificent insects after reading this book. Aside from the lovely images, the book also contains some very interesting information about dragonflies. I am particularly fond of the chapter called Dragonfly Tales, which covers dragonfly myths and folklore in more detail than I've seen in any other dragonfly book to date. Other chapters cover information rarely included in other books such as imaging, gardening for, and collecting dragonflies. It also discusses more commonly covered topics such as dragonfly life histories, structure, evolution, and development.

This is an impressive collection of amazing images and interesting, rarely published information. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in dragonflies, novice and expert alike.

a gorgeous book
This is a fantastic book - everything you wanted to know about dragonflies, with pictures! There are pages and pages of gorgeous photographs and lots of interesting information about dragonflies, from science to folklore. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in these beautiful insects.

Topnotch coffee table book
Texas nature writer, Ro Wauer, reviewed this book in July 2005 and described it as a book on dragonflies and damselflies. Well, the former is the case but the latter does not apply. The authors themselves make no such claims, but suggest any use of damselfly photos or references to them is merely for comparison's sake. That being said, the book is excellent and unique for format and photographic technique used. The flatbed scanned photos of scintillating dragonflies up-close-and-personal, is one of a kind. Finally, there is a book that is beginning to give dragonflies their due as relates to their splendid detail, coloring, and overall beauty! I was particularly impressed as well with the etymological study on the word "dragonfly"; I've not seen this very interesting and most imformative material presented in any other book on dragonflies until now. The book is well worth the price many times over. In fact, don't just get one copy! It is destined to be a classic gift item that will be treasured for years.