Golden Guide field guide to butterflies and moths book. A full-color Golden Guide on 423 of the most common, or unusual butterflies and moths found in North America. Includes how to identify, attract, rear, and preserve them for study. 160 pages book, paperback.
This is a one-two day read/look . Some really surprising information about butterflies and moths ; but the real treat is the amazing illustrations . I wish I had 1% of the artistic ability . The numbers and breeds are mind-blowing .
Intelligent, concise editing with beautiful illustrations
This guide contains pertinent and enough information of each species, including their locale and migration to make you want to go out and start looking for them. Beautiful illustrations are on every page, which you can enlarge in an eBook. I've been studying nature illustration and appreciate the drawings as opposed to photographs. Highly recommend adding the Golden Rule collection to your library, especially the digital editions.
I wanted a book that gave me a variety of butterfly shapes and color patterns with not a great deal of scientific data to wade through. I wanted pictures to make beautiful things from. This book fills the bill admirably, with some additional flowers in the mix, so I feel I got a real deal with lots of butterfly shapes and color patterns to make all kinds of designs from. Any jewelry artist out there might well consider looking at moth and butterfly pictures for some beautiful ideas for jewelry and accessories from our natural world. Robert T. Mitchell et al. have produced a lovely book to spark dozens of ideas for jewelry and accessories from some of the loveliest creatures on the planet.
Not a lepidoptera enthusiast (yet), and so, for me, this was a nice intro. The description of each species includes a selection of information on distinguishing marks, geographic range, food and life cycle, presented in a nice, non-repetitive prose. Intro includes tips on collecting, raising and studying. The last few pages of the book are devoted to the worst pests which turn out to also be the smallest and ugliest moths. It's a good thing these are saved for last, as they would be enough to turn anyone against the whole order.
This is a very basic guide for beginner lepidopterists/entomologists. I appreciated the detailed description of both adults and larvae near the illustrations, but it was frustrating to see only upper or under sides of many species. And some species were discussed, but not properly shown. The scientific names are found in the Index section, but aren't mentioned in the actual text around the illustrations either. I would say this could supplement, not replace, other insect identification materials for most hobbyists.
I use this small pocket guide, part of the Golden Nature Guide series, primarily for identification of moths. There seems to be a plethora of excellent guides for butterflies, few for moths. I could only have wished that Golden had focused solely on moths given the limited space in these small guides.
For their size and compression of info, the Golden Nature Guides are truly little gems with really good illustrations. You can't go wrong starting here.