National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America

I was leading a scouting badge on insects and this book was a live saver! Nice pictures, great descriptions, full of information on any but you can think of.

Came in in perfect condition. No ripped pages or drawings in it. I remember having this book for a long time before I lost it, also in perfect condition.... Always something interesting to read in it, and genuinely helpful for identifying the bugs and spiders around me. Hopefully whoever found it got some good use out of it.

We bought this for our boys to identify insects in the backyard. They have loved the dog out of this book. And it has held up pretty well with how careless and rough a six year old and three year old can be. All the pages are still in the book, the cover is starting to loosen a bit. The cover has a water proof casing though so that is a plus! The photos are the main reason we bought the book since our boys can’t read yet. So many beautiful photos, yet still contains all the information for older kids to read. We researched several types of insect guides before landing on this one and I am so glad we bought it!

For my grandchildren. They love all the books.

Some background first-- I'm a graduate student, a long-time lover of all things creepy and crawly, and I am taking a couple of entomology courses this semester. One of my assignments was to start an insect collection over the summer so I wanted to get a couple of guides to help out with identification. Now, seeing how many insect species there are total, even just in North America, it's impossible for one guide to cover all of them. That's why the main goal of guides like this one is to represent some of the more commonly seen species/genera as well as the more unusual and eyecatching ones. You're probably not going to be able to identify what species of grass veneer moth you saw with this guide (though if you get Peterson's Field Guide to Moths you might), but you should be able to find the right order and family for many species. If you're lucky, maybe the right genus, too. PROS: -Covers a wide variety of insect orders as well as arachnids. Also has a few pages prefacing each section that explains the classification criteria and some of the life history. -For most people, this guide will have a sufficient amount of genera and species represented to help with identification. -The photos are nice. I can tell they lightened some of them with the dodge tool (there are subtle "halos" around some of them-- not a big deal at all and most people are unlikely to notice, I just use Photoshop a lot so I could spot it) to really try and make the critters visible, which is helpful. -Showing only 3 insects per page means the photos are a decent size and you don't need to strain your eyes too much to see the details. -It's just a nice-looking book. The colors are great and I haven't had in trouble with the binding. -The cover is supposedly water-proof, though I haven't tested it. CONS: -There are pictures on both pages. On one hand, I definitely understand the reasoning here especially because there's only 3 images per page, and many guides do this. However, it does make flipping through the guide harder. My personal preference is to have photos on the right page and text on the left. -You need to be very, very careful about using this guide to ID down to species level. Many of the entries only go down to genus level to begin with, but others show a species and don't mention when there are several similar-looking ones in the same genus. My recommendation is to use this guide to narrow down your search and then turn to the internet (BugGuide, iNaturalist, etc) to find a more specific ID. Does that make having this guide less useful? Yeah, kinda. For me it does, at least. But that depends on how you want to use it and how much you care about finding a species/genus vs being content saying "this is a kind of leaf-footed bug". -Despite being a "field guide," this book is a little too big and heavy for me to really carry around in the field. I mean, it's doable and there are heavier guides out there, but it's pretty thick and since you can't get that species ID from it, it's best to just leave it home and consult it later. I always photograph and/or capture my critters so that's not a problem for me, but it might be for other people who want some kind of a pocket guide. If you think this might be a problem for you I'd suggest the Kaufman guide which is more compact. Overall, I like this book, but it may leave people searching for species IDs disappointed. Personally I would rather use more in-depth field guides for specific orders and families (like Evans' Beetles of Eastern North America or the Kaufman Butterflies of North America guides) but if you just want to get a sense of what you're looking at, you could do a lot worse than to get this book. One alternative guide I'd suggest checking out, which I mentioned above, is the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America. It's not without its drawbacks but I prefer how it's organized and it's more lightweight. Unfortunately this guide did not come back to school with me because I have limited space and it wasn't useful enough for my purposes, as I already have a pretty good working knowledge of most insect orders and families.

I used this book 3 times the same exact day I got it. My wife loves to point out where bugs are in the house and I would capture them in a jar and take pictures of them. I then release them and then go back inside to look up on the internet what I had discovered. It would take some time however it was a pain. Now, with this guide I can look them up very quickly and its neat... The first discovery I made with the book was a male "black widow" which was a shock because they didn't look like anything i would have thought. Great book!

I'm kind of a field guide junkie, mainly by way of birding. I wanted to start casually identifying insects (meaning not make an obsessive project of it) and I don't think this book has missed yet -- bees, flies, beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, even spiders, I'm pretty sure I've found my answer every time, or very close. Great photos, layout, info. It's perfect if you just want one book. Any butterflies I see in my backyard, for example, are bound to be pretty common, so this book will do it if that's as deep as you want to pursue butterflies (or beetles, or etc. etc.).

Bought this book to be able to identify local insects as we are new to the area and very different insects here. A handy reference with nice photos and write ups on many insects. Really like the information it lists about each insect and the quality of the book itself as well. I am not studying insects in a college so if this is what you need it may or may not be as in depth as you're looking for but I would definitely recommend this book. Great book

I found this book is great for those wanting to learn more about insects and arachnids in north america. I work in an entomology setting and go to university in a related field, and the academics I work with agreed this book is good!

i love all thes books very interesting, great colouring plates of the birds great for a birding person. Thank you

A bit slower to locate the species compared to those lightweight manuals, but once you get there, the rich content offered by this book won't be matched by those pocket guides that cost just as much with half the pages!

Indispensable en la biblioteca de estudiante o profesionista

It doesn’t have all the bugs in it but it’s an excellent book to put you in the ballpark of the insects you’re looking at,great detailed pictures I use it first to identify a bug lot easier than most books