Pacific Northwest Insects

This field guide sets a new standard for insect identification, making it an indispensable resource to naturalists, educators, gardeners, and others. Engaging and accessible, Pacific Northwest Insects features detailed species accounts, each with a vivid photograph of a living adult, along with information for distinguishing similar species, allowing the reader to identify more than 3,000 species found from southern British Columbia to northern California and as far east as Montana. The book features most of the commonly encountered insects, spiders, scorpions, millipedes, centipedes, and kin in the Pacific Northwest, as well as representatives of an amazing variety of unusual and interesting insects living in the area. After more than a decade of research, reviewing hundreds of thousands of museum specimens and scouring the technical entomological literature, Merrill Peterson has brought together for the first time in a single volume a wealth of information on the region's insect life. Detailed identifying information on over 3,000 species Complete description of 1,200 species Organized by insect group for easy identification Up-to-date taxonomy 1,725 color photos, 50 line drawings, and 2 maps

A fun-filled field guide into the creepy-crawly world of the bugs of Washington and Oregon. Learn about 125 of the coolest bugs you might encounter in the great outdoors of the Northwest. John Acorn, an avid "bugster" and host of the popular television series The Nature Nut, supplies lively text that evokes each species' character. Respected artist and naturalist Ian Sheldon has created brilliant illustrations that bring each bug to life.

Key to families of staphyliniformia; Family silphidae; Family leptinidae; Family leiodidae; Family staphylinidae; Scydmaenidae; Scaphidiidae; Clambidae; Corylophidae; Ptiliidae.

An invaluable resource for nature lovers in the Pacific Northwest Insects of the Pacific Northwest describes more than 450 species including beetles, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, flies, bees, wasps, ants, spiders, millipedes, snails, and slugs. This must-have field guide is perfect for hikers, fishers, and naturalists. More than 600 superb color photographs Helpful keys for identification Clear coded layout Covers Oregon, Washington, northern California, and British Columbia

Insects are all around us, from the butterflies in our gardens to the mosquitoes in the woods. About 80 percent of the 1.5 million named species of animals on earth are insects. Without flower-loving bees, wasps, flies and beetles, most crops and wild plants would not be pollinated and would disappear. But insect diversity is largely invisible because most insects are small and difficult to recognize and identify. They are often easy to ignore. A Field Guide to Insects of the Pacific Northwest is a durable, water-resistant eight-fold field guide that describes more than sixty of the most common species that are likely to be encountered in the many habitats of the Pacific Northwest. Full-colour macro photos of specimens in their natural habitats accompany handy descriptions with information on specific species' anatomy, identification and importance in the ecosystem. Readers will be fascinated by interesting (and occasionally gruesome) facts about the insect inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest--for instance that the robber fly injects its insect prey with a fluid that dissolves muscles and organs before sucking their prey dry like a milkshake. The species in A Field Guide to Insects of the Pacific Northwest have been expertly chosen to introduce the diversity of insect life while also being accessible to novice bug enthusiasts. Most species shown are common but not necessarily familiar. The selection represents nineteen major groups, or orders. The largest are Coleoptera (beetles), Diptera (true flies), Hymenoptera (wasps, bees and relatives) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). These groups are broken down into smaller families, such as scarab beetles or sphinx moths. A Field Guide to Insects of the Pacific Northwest showcases the amazing diversity of insects that the region holds, and will encourage curious readers to learn a little about the main groups of insects and the intriguing details about their lives.