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Title: Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Kaufman Field Guides)
ISBN: 0618153101
Author:
Kenn Kaufman
Eric R. Eaton
Publicate Date: 2007-02-28
Publish: 2007-02-28
List Price: $18.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Turtleback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $10.42
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.06
Amazon Merchant Price: $12.89
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Great for your nature library
This is a great adjunct to the Peterson Field Guide to The Insects...A serious bug nut should have them both, the Peterson for the text and Kaufman for the many excellent photos.
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2: Another hit for Kenn Kaufman
Kenn Kaufman and his team have put out another easy to use and beautiful to look at field guide. Unlike many insect field guides out there, the reader does not need any scientific knowledge to use this effectively. It has color-coded pages for the sections, and section sub-headings like "If it's really small or really weird looking, try here". Of course, no insect guide weighing less than a small car can include all the insects of North America, but this one has an impressive number of insects, useful photos of every one, and good information on them.
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3: Best insect guide to date
This is the best field guide available for the novice or experienced entomologist. The diversity of insects shown are beautifully illustrated and their identifications are accurate. The guide is very user-friendly with different easy ways to access insects by groups, common names, and scientific names. The descriptions, although brief, are very informative and highlight pertinent aspects of the insect groups or individual species being discussed. The authors are to be commended for producing the very first insect guide that enables an individual unfamiliar with entomology to rapidly get at least a good idea of the kind of insect he or she is trying to identify, and with so many common insects illustrated, a specific identification is possible in many cases.
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4: Curious about insects? This is the essential guide
A decade ago, at least 90,000 species of insects had been recorded north of Mexico and tens of thousands remained undescribed. Clearly a comprehensive field guide is out of the question. The only other one-volume guide to North American insects on my shelves is Borror & White's Peterson Field Guide A Field Guide to Insects which, having been published in 1970, is getting rather long in the tooth. Nevertheless, it has done a stalwart job and remains the only guide to give a detailed systematic overview of North American insects, relying on concise text and monochrome and coloured plates to achieve this. Although the chances of putting a specific name on your given insect are slim, this guide will usually get you to the correct order - often family.
The Kaufman Guide comes as a welcome refresher with a slightly different philospohy. The authors use an approach which is slightly less rigid and much more visual. They follow Kaufman's previous guides (Birds, Butterflies) in using digitally-enhanced photographs - 2,350 of them! - to illustrate their subject. The user will either flick through the book, or use the 4-page "Pictorial keys" at the beginning to find the type of insect they are dealing with, hopefully keying in on a specific matching photograph to identify it. A short text on the facing page should confirm identification and may provide additional information on natural history.
This is definitely the guide beginners will want to acquire, but it should find a place on every naturalist's bookshelf. Highly recommended.
Chris Sharpe, 5 May 2008. ISBN: 0618153101
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5: Kaufmann Guide covers a lot of ground
The Kaufmann Field Guide to Insects covers an impossible amount of subject matter, and does it well. It will certainly get you close enough to an ID to follow through on the Net, Google it, and find out more. The photos are clear enough, and the examples diverse enough to make it very usable when you're in the field, and find something you weren't looking for in the first place. A purchase I have enjoyed, and one I would do again. Certainly a good present for anyone living in rural areas, and most suburban locations.
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