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| National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders (National Audubon Society Field Guides) | 
| Author: National Audubon Society
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $4.96
You Save: $14.99 (75%)
New (40) Collectible (3) from $11.17
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 3870
Media: Imitation Leather
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 992
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 3.8 x 1.5
ISBN: 0394507630
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.7097
EAN: 9780394507637
ASIN: 0394507630
Publication Date: November 12, 1980
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Bug Book October 1, 2005
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I basically was looking for spider book, but this was a spider book and so much more. Very helpful identifying insects. I'm very pleased with it.
 National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders August 29, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am going after my Horticulture Degree and this book was a "must" when we studied "Insect and Disease". We called it the "Insect Bible". I could not have completed the course without it. In fact, a friend saw my book and had to have one.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders (Audubon Society Field Guide) August 22, 2005
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm a homeschool mom and this book is a great field guide, we use to help id insects we find on our nature walks or at our house. we love it.
 Another Frustrating Insect Guide November 23, 2004
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
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.
 Not enough information on Spiders October 19, 2004
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book is lacking in the identification of spiders. I have five very abundant spiders in my yard and in my house and yet I have only come across one of the them in this book. I have recently found out through the internet, not this book, that one rather large common spider I have been finding in my house is a hobo spider, which bite is equal to that of a brown recluse spider. Extremely disappointed that a spider with such a bite could not easily be found in this book. Would like to find a good field guide on just spiders, however, have not found any to date.
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