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| Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Kaufman Field Guides) | 
| Authors: Kenn Kaufman, Eric R. Eaton
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $7.88
You Save: $11.07 (58%)
New (39) from $7.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 7372
Media: Turtleback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 392
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0618153101
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.7097
EAN: 9780618153107
ASIN: 0618153101
Publication Date: February 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New; Excellent condition! Clean crisp tight copy, no marks,could have some minor shelf wear. Email Notification, Satisfaction Guaranteed,Direct from our warehouse.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Many insects are difficult even for the experts to identify. In the
new Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, readers
will find a wealth of information on the amazing observable behaviors of
insects and their fascinating life histories. Naturalists Kenn Kaufman
and Eric R. Eaton use a broad ecological approach rather than overly technical terms, making the book accessible and understandable for everyone. The lively and engaging text emphasizes the insects that are most
likely to catch our attention but includes information on all groups that
can be recognized. The guide is lavishly illustrated, with more than
2,350 digitally enhanced photographs representing every major group
of insects found in North America north of Mexico. Comprehensive yet
compact, authoritative yet easy to understand, this is the perfect guide
for anyone who wants to know more about the fascinating and diverse
insects of North America.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 A Grown-Up Golden Guide! July 17, 2008
I think this book is perfect. It has just enough of everything so that the book is affordable and light enough to really be a FIELD guide. The pictures are terrific...there are just enough on a page so your eye can easily scan when you are looking for a particular insect.
This guide has about 400 pages and more than 2,350 images so OF COURSE it isn't going to have lots of details about every insect. And since, according to one reviewer, there are about 10,000 insects in North America, OF COURSE it isn't going to have every insect. What it DOES have is enough illustrations so you can find something VERY close if you can't find the exact insect. With that information, you can go to the internet and look up the details without wading through lots of irrelevant material--I was spending FAR too much time on whatsthatbug dot com and bugguide dot net before I got this book.
This is the handiest insect book I have had since I was about 6 and wore out my Golden Guide! If you are debating about getting the book, just do it--it's only about $13 and this is Amazon--you can send it back if you don't like it. I'm betting you won't be sending it back.
Great for your nature library June 23, 2008
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.
 Another hit for Kenn Kaufman June 1, 2008
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.
Best insect guide to date May 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Curious about insects? This is the essential guide May 5, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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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