National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders: North America (National Audubon Society Field Guides)

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.Unfortunately most, including this Audubon Guide, may not even do that.To test insect guides I took a series of photographs of each of three insects and then tried to identify them with the help of the guides. They were pictures of a butterfly-like insect, a bee and a fly. To find an insect in Audubon one first looks through an index of over 100 different insect and spider silhouettes. Located next to the silhouettes are the pages in the guide where insects resembling the silhouette are grouped. One can also use a thumb tab located on the page edge of each set of plates to find the desired silhouette. Next one goes through the individual plates adjacent to the silhouette to find the picture of an insect resembling one's target. The text page relating to each insect shown is listed under its picture. The text provides a description of the insect family and behavior but no illustrations. The plates are ordered by color and shape and not by insect order to make it easy to identify an insect without knowing anything about its taxa. However, because of the literal nature of a photograph, one may not be able to identify the family of an insect not pictured.In the case of my butterfly-like insect I was not able to identify it, although because I knew from other research that it was a Brown Skipper, I did find the picture of a different looking skipper. For my bee and my fly, I saw several similar insects but was unable to identify either as to family.Unlike the other insect guides, the Audubon includes a section on spiders, which are not in the insect family. Since one is likely to encounter arachnids while searching for insecta, this may be convenient.The Audubon has one of the easiest to use methods of finding an insect of any of the insect guides. However, if the guide doesn't include a picture of your insect in its 627 plates (it also has 63 spider plates), one may be unlikely to identify a specimen or its family. This may leave you as frustrated as any of the other insect guides.Users who prefer drawings to photographs might want to examine the Peterson Field Guide, "Insects" by Donald Borror and Richard White. However, it too will probably leave you feeling unsatisfied.

Good coverage for insects and spiders in my area.

I pull this book out at least once a day! I am so excited to take it with us hiking and to teach my kids with it. The pictures are great, the info is easy to read and understand and I am so happy with this book.

Bought as gift for Master Naturalist. Great information, very comprehensive and detailed.

Very beautiful photos 📷 of so many different kinds of bugs and spiders

I love this series of guides and have a number of them, but this one was a little disappointing. At first, it seemed great as it covers a large number of types of bugs- flies, fleas, ticks, spiders, butterflies, moths, caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers, mayflies, bees and more. However, due to the large number of types covered, there are not a lot of species identified per type. Could not find the two most common spiders around our Pennsylvania farm, and keep finding that issue reoccurring. Would have preferred this was 2 (maybe more) separate books so more species could be covered in detail, it's just too broad a topic for a single guide book. Still very user-friendly and informative with full color pictures nicely organized in front, and detailed information about habitat, range, life cycle and more in the back.

Is the high quality information, text, and photos National Audubon guides are known for.

Pros: I used this book for a science competition for identifying insects... It is extremely useful with pictures at the front for viewing each insect. The pictures are organized by insect biotype and refer to the page number where insect information is. The booklet contains spiders & insects and goes in-depth for butterflies. It has basic info on families and select species.Cons: One thing I wish this book had was more pictures at the front, since there were some insects I had never seen before and couldn't even find something similar in the book. Identification points would've also been appreciable. The book is small and ideal for packing, but will close on its own since it's so small.Condition: brand-new, but I bought it used. B)

Buen empastado resistente, aunque el papel es muy delicado, eso debe tenerse en cuenta, pero su tamaño compacto y forro resistente lo hacen ideal para esas excursiones para aprender a conocer los tipos de artrópodos de Norteamérica.Desde luego no están todos (Hay miles) pero lo excelente es que se me hace un libro muy completo sólido en sus básicos, es decir como una introducción a la entomología y la aracnología, es genial. Bien ilustrado con abundantes descripciones y datos anatómicos y diagramas, lo básico queda bien explicado, el resto es sumergirse, pero éste es un excelente primer paso.Como educador lo recomiendo mucho.

The media could not be loaded.  I really like this book!! Unfortunately it so happened that the first caterpillar I wanted to look up in the text section was missing. Pages 777-800 have been replaced with copied of pages 729-752..….very disappointing...I wonder if my book is the only one with this defect or if there are others as well ..

A pesar de estar desactualizado en algunos órdenes o familiares está muy completo e incluye al menos un integrante de cada familia común. Para identificar a nivel de especie ya no es muy útil pero para eso necesitas claves especializadas. Las páginas sí son delgadas pero si lo tratas con cuidado no hay problema.

This is a beautiful binded book, durable, glossy pictures, great font, great paper.The information is perfect: color plates, pictures, order, family, information on location, mating habit, life stages, etc...Identification is easy, learning is fantastic.I now only wish they would produce this type of book again : one for every family listed.

Awesome book, we love it. I would only like to have habitat range maps along with the descriptions.