Tracks and Sign of Insects and other Invertebrates

[Tom]

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 and it is available in the BCPL, numbered 595.7097 E