Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates

by Charley Eiseman, Noah Charney

The first-ever reference to the sign left by insects and other North American invertebrates includes descriptions and almost 1,000 color photos of tracks, egg cases, nests, feeding signs, galls, webs, burrows, and signs of predation.

Genres: Nature, Science, Reference, Biology, Gardening, Field Guides, Wildlife

592 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2010

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic guide to associating signs (eggs, patterns of damage to leaves, marks in sand, etc) with the insects that made them. Physically, this is a high quality book; great pictures, nice and heavy paper. I found the book to be a bit shorter than I would like - but you can't have everything in such a niche book!
Love this book!

[Betsy Putnam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite insect book I own

[Tom Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is kind of a field guide to the tracks and particularly other sign that insects leave as they live their lives. It's not a true field guide since it does't have a key to lead you to a specific ID. Instead it is divided into sections; eggs, pupae, silk, sign on wood, leaf mines, droppings, galls, etc. Within each section there are descriptions of sign usually grouped by types of animals i.e. beetles, spiders caterpillars. You can ID quite a few sign back to at least the family of the creator and often the species if the sign is unique enough just by paging through the section. Both common and latin names are given for the invertebrate creating the sign. I found quite a few things I have seen and many I will now be looking for.

The best part of this book is just reading through it for the wealth of information and the amazing life styles about mostly insects and spiders but also covering crustaceans and mollusks. From life stages, to nests and breeding behavior, to feeding, there are signs everywhere. My favorite was the parasite that lays it's eggs on the edge of a leaf so a parasitized caterpillar can eat it and it can then infect the parasite inside the caterpillar. Parasitism is common in insects and now that I know how to look for signs I'll look more. For instance I've seen caterpillars with rows of what I thought where parasite eggs on their backs. I now know to look more closely because they were more likely pupal cocoons of the parasites.

The diversity of life is truly illustrated here. Most of the pictures do not include the creator of the sign but some do. If you ID a sign you may have to use a field guide or the internet to actually see what the creator of the sign looks like.

Some sections I skimmed thru but others I read thoroughly. It a great resource to open your eyes to seeing this small but fascinating world.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun and informative book. I see things often in the woods and wonder about them but don't always know where to turn to find out. These two authors did an amazing job of research. They are even better in-person if you get a chance to see them. Here's their website: http://www.northernnaturalists.com

[Laura Gilfillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What are those red lumps on the maple leaves? What are those silvery lines traced on those leaves? Why are there funny lumps in the dirt? This book will answer, or at least give clues to, dozens of questions like these, and help interpret many of the tiny traces insects leave all over in the world around us.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this constantly. Excellent for galls, mines, eggs, webs, etc... In fact I enjoyed it so much I read it cover to cover, but I imagine most people would not.