(Part 2) Top products from r/Entomology

Sorry, HUGE dragonfly nerd here! That's a sympetrum sp. (common name Meadowhawk)! I've done a bit of work with them in the past. They are pretty common, but individual species for sympetrums are pretty hard to tell apart. :/ Though, it looks like a male to me with it's bright colors. They come out in late summer and are still around until the end of September. Sympetrums are a perching species that like to establish territories for breeding. They will find a perch, go after prey, and come back to their perch, which is much different from a hawking dragonfly like Anax junius (an Aeshna) that likes to hunt as it flies. Dragonflies also predict where a prey is going to be and intercept it, they don't chase after prey. How cool is that! I really recommend getting a Stoke's beginner guide to dragonflies! It's the best cheap guide I've found for dragonflies http://www.amazon.com/Stokes-Beginners-Guide-Dragonflies-Nikula/dp/0316816795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347984018&sr=8-1&keywords=stokes+beginners+guide+to+dragonflies

There are various editions to this book, but it has a general overview of different insects with a good deal of pictures and a useful set of keys in the back: Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity by Stephen Marshall.

Sting of the Wild by Justin Schmidt, this is an interesting read by an entomologist that evaluates the intensity of stings of various insects, along with other interesting pieces of information. He also predates Coyote Peterson in this endeavor.

Infested by Brooke Borel is about bed bugs and was entertaining for me hearing about stories of what people have done in response to the presence of bed bugs and other anecdotes.

Also, consider doing a search or two on this sub, or via google but focused on reddit, for book recommendations as this has come up in the past, but I don't have a link handy for it unfortunately. Some other good things have been suggested before!

Enjoy!

As an amateur entomologist, I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Beetles-Field-Guide-North-America/dp/0395910897/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310612837&sr=8-1

Really good guide and will also open your eyes to the vast diversity in beetles.

I'm sure there are more complete guides out there. If anyone can post other recommendations, please do so! I've actually lost this book 15 years ago, but will be buying it again as I want to start collecting insects again. I'm specifically interested in a good guide to darkling beetles. Good meaning easy to use, well written, and very comprehensive.

EDIT: Also, anyone know of really good ID guides for hemiptera, homoptera, and mantodea?

Besides all the really good ones already posted (Alex Wild and Thomas Shahan especially) I would definitely recommend browsing through Sam Droege's photos. He photographs bees (and sometimes other insects and small vertebrates) for the USGS, and all the photos are public domain, completely free to use. I've watched Sam work, and the extent to which he'll go for a perfect specimen is crazy; he'll give 20-year old dried specimens "baths" in dish soap and warm water, blow-dry them, and then go to work picking off any flecks of dust or fibres using ridiculously pared-down camelhair brushes. And yet his camera set-up is basically just a DSLR on a sled covered in a styrofoam cooler box. He recently put out a book full of gorgeous pictures of bees from around the world, with natural history comments by melittologist Laurence Packer. Definitely worth checking out.

I think that depends on how you're defining learn. You'll certainly learn interesting facts about ants that you didn't know, but it's not a textbook like Superorganism/The Ants. However, it's probably my favorite or a close second out of the books listed above, and you really can't go wrong with Wilson and Holldobler. They're really the gods of ant research, and if you're interested in ants you should probably just read everything they've written related to ants.

I just realized that I forgot this:

http://www.amazon.com/Leafcutter-Ants-Civilization-Instinct/dp/0393338681/

which may be my favorite, since leafcutter ants are my favorite ants. If you have to choose between this and Journy, perhaps take Journey first because it covers a wider range of ants than the narrow Leafcutter book.

In terms of field guides, I've found both Glassberg's "Butterflies through Binoculars" and Petersen's "Field Guide to Western Butterflies" to be amazingly helpful for identifying Leps on the go.

Technical books can be a bit trickier, however. I wholeheartedly agree with sandozguineapig's recommendation on Triplehorn's textbook. I'm currently using the 7th edition for many of my entomology courses and both the keys and family descriptions are excellent for all the insect orders. Another book my Lepidopterist friend actually uses in her work is Scoble's "The Lepidoptera: Form, Function and Diversity" and tells me it is also quite an excellent book.

I'll be sure to ask some folks around lab to see if they have any suggestions!

Here are a couple of books that are good for kids but not tooo kiddy.

NatGeo: Ultimate Bugopedia

Yuval Zommer "Big Book of Bugs" (Illustrated)

DK: Super Bug Encyclopedia

Also recommend the Kaufman field guide if you want a good basic field guide.

For love of insects by Thomas Eisner is incredible, really interesting stories, beautiful photos and really good science

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Insects-Thomas-Eisner/dp/0674018273/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382145973&sr=1-1&keywords=for+love+of+insects

I'd also suggest ditching the Audubon guide. Quite frankly, it's rubbish. Poorly organized, and a number of the photos are incorrectly ID'd. I highly recommend the Kauffman Guide to Insects by Eric Eaton for a broad overview of North American insect fauna.

Otherwise, if you're focusing on butterflies, the Peterson guides are quite useful. The eastern and western volumes by Opler are both useful, but lack quality keys.

The recently revised Peterson guide to Northeastern moths by Beadle & Leckie is impressive in its coverage (but by no means comprehensive) but similarly lacks any sort of useful key for identification.

If you're looking for other field guide recommendations, I'd be happy to share!

Here's how I survived college (virtually every subject): The Memory Book. These are techniques that memory champions use (those dudes who memorize Pi to 1000s of digits and stuff like that). Surprisingly easy to learn.

How about a field guide? Audubon's Guide to Insects and Spiders, or Peterson's: http://www.amazon.com/Peterson-First-Guide-Insects-America/dp/0395906644/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395083660&sr=1-5&keywords=insect+field+guide are good for amateurs or pros. Either way, field guides are invaluable and will be kept and referred to for a lifetime. You could write a sweet note inside the cover.

Or maybe the Through the Binoculars Guides if she's a hobbyist, because these are organized by color first, making it easy to quickly find and name each critter: Dragonflies through Binoculars: http://www.amazon.com/Dragonflies-through-Binoculars-America-Butterflies/dp/0195112687/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395083693&sr=1-2&keywords=dragonfly+field+guide

Butterflies through Binoculars: http://www.amazon.com/Butterflies-through-Binoculars-Eastern-America/dp/0195106687/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395083770&sr=1-1&keywords=butterflies+through+binoculars+the+east

That is actually my textbook for a biology of arthropods course I am currently taking. It seems well-liked as a sort of general entomology book. I have been using the keys to families in it with some success for my collection.

I enjoyed reading “A World of Insects”, which I found in my university’s library. It is a compilation of entomology essays spanning a wide range of topics like ant behaviors, pest control, etc. They are scientific writings, but enjoyable to read if you are into that sort of thing.

A World of Insects: The Harvard University Press Reader https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674046196/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_A2h2BbMFN7HE8

This book takes up about 45 minutes of my time every time I open it. He also does a great job of giving scientific names in the back of the book if you want to learn more about individual species.

http://www.amazon.com/Pheromone-Insect-Artwork-Christopher-Marley/dp/0764946196/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395075042&sr=1-1&keywords=pheromone

Ive really enjoyed David Quamman's Song of the DoDo and E.O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life They both follow similar themes of Island Biogeography, extinction, and biodiversity. They also explain a lot of fundamental concepts in Ecology really well. E.O. is obviously an Entomologist so most of the large concepts he goes over are explained using insect models.

The Peterson's field guide to butterflies comes in separate east/west volumes, and I find all of their field guides to be top-notch. Audubon is also good, but a single volume.

As far as texts go, I don't know a good one for just leps, but would recommend any used edition of Borror, Triplehorn, and Johnson (I think the new ones have a different name combo) - if your looking for a book with a key and good family info.

If you want to get to the nuts and bolts of things, there's Chapman and Snodgrass - both have leps and all the rest.

Well, call me old-fashioned, so I'm going to recommend hard-copy books for anatomy (I can't give you a recommendation for dissections). But you can't do better than Snodgrass "Principles of Insect Morphology" (http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100570850&fa=author&person_id=1199)
and Chapman "The Insects: Structure & Function" (https://www.amazon.com/Insects-Structure-Function-R-Chapman/dp/052111389X)

I've had difficulty finding a good print resource on chrysalises , but that's likely because it's very difficult to identify a butterfly by its chrysalis. This website has a few pictures of the most common chrysalises you're likely to encounter on the east coast. This book is pretty good for identifying caterpillars, while this one is decent for identifying adults. Its not great for taxonomy work, but if you're just looking to ID them it should be sufficient. It does have a section on caterpillars and chrysalises, but as I said, it can be difficult to identify them so the book doesn't devote a lot of space to it.