(Part 2) Top products from r/whatsthisbug

For beetles north of Mexico, I recommend the old favourite, Peterson Field Guides: Beetles of North America. People who complain that the book should have photos instead line drawings don't know what they're talking about. Line drawings are superior for identification because diagnostic traits are more visible. The purpose of a field guide of identification, not to a pretty coffee book (if you want a pretty coffee book, The Book of Beetles is my favorite, and I have it in my living room at the moment).

For insects in general north of Mexico, I recommend the counterpart from the same series.

If you insist on photos, I recommend the National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America (which, by the way, was written by a member of BugGuide.net). Since it has photos, I'd recommend it for beginners. Once they feel more comfortable with insect taxonomy, they should add the Peterson Field Guides to their collection. Avoid the popular Audubon series because it values pretty photos over practicality.

The Peterson Field Guides are great because they provide keys, diagnostic traits, similar families, collecting methods, and a plethora of amazingly detailed line drawings (and color slides). They also have great introductory material. The taxonomy is outdated, but it's not a big issue when you have online guides, like BugGuide.net, that keep their taxonomy current. The more important takeaway is that these guides will quickly teach you insect taxonomy, and you quickly develop a big-picture sense--that is, the diversity--and a granular sense--that is, the subtle difference between similar clades.

As for "state by state" guides, I have the California Natural History Guides: Field Guide to Beetles of California. There aren't line drawings like those in the Peterson Field Guides, but you do have some photographic slides in the middle section. For this, I would only recommend the book for those with enough familiarity with beetles.

Like you said, "the scope of insects is way too huge for a simple, small field guide." Many reviewers don't understand this, and complain about the lack of specificity. To satisfy their specificity, you'd probably need a guide at the city or county level (without exceeding a million pages, and assuming an entomologist is willing to take on that task LOL). Insects are so grossly misunderstood by most people (that is, most people compare the taxonomic scope of insects with that of let's say, mammals, which is like comparing travel guides for the Vatican with that of Russia--or the United States), you are better off ignoring most laymen reviews if your goal is to actually learn.

A specific regional guide will usually be more meaningful to own than a general guide that covers all of North America.

That been said, I personally own and recommend the National Wildlife Federation's Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America. It's packed with pictures and organizes everything by order, and then by family (to really understand the groupings, you should familiarize yourself with taxonomic rank). For each order, it includes some basic anatomical diagrams to help you distinguish one order from another.

It's also printed on some pretty durable gloss paper and has a water resistant cover, as icing on the cake.



I have not compared it to the Kaufman guide, since my book store does not carry it.

Comparing it to the Audubon version, I find that the NWF's guide is better for beginners due to having a picture for everything it lists. I also noticed the toner was coming off on my hand on the audubon guide while I was flipping through it in the book store.

I scarcely use it now because I've gotten good enough at identifying orders and a good number of families to use bugguide to narrow things down, but it was nice to take along on a camping trip.

Note that if you want to learn how to differentiate families of beetles or butterflies or spiders based on their anatomical traits, you'll probably need a specific field guide pertaining only to that bug. I can't recommend any, since I don't own any. Or use online references - again, bugguide is pretty good for a lot of things, but I have learned a ton from just googling for the information on a specific taxon.

He's two. It happens. If I could make a recommendation, though, there is an absolutely amazing book, I'm Trying to Love Spiders, by Bethany Barton. You and he might enjoy reading it together. My students love it! (I teach summer school classes about bugs and spiders to middle school and elementary school students. The older kids are a bit beyond that book, but the little guys love it! They like patting the page whenever "Squish it!" appears.)

Yeah, Googling is hard without knowing some of the common families and such. There are nearly 50 thousand spiders in the world, and that's a lot to sift through!
Bugguide has some helpful pages, including this one that goes over some of the different eye arrangements you see in North American spider families.
If you're at all interested, there's a very nice new book full of vivid drawings of spiders, would probably be nice to flip through with the kiddies.
Spiders are a fun thing to get into!

I'm sure someone else will know, but in the meantime, I'll give an enthusiastic recommendation (for any budding entomologists who may be on this subreddit) of Tracks & Signs of Insects and Other Invertebrates. Best field guide I've bought in a long while.

I think these are lepidopteran eggs, but I'm not 100% sure. If I had that book on me, I'd check!

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles is a great book about beetles, for iding them i like the peterson guides.

If you're interested in fostering a moth obsession, I recommend this book to help set the stage!

Sorry if my post sounded rude, it was not intentional, I shouldn't post late at night.

I have worked as an entomologist specialising in pollinators in the UK for nearly 10 years, and I have never heard of a bumblebee queen surviving more than one colony life cycle. This is very interesting. I've just had a look through some of my books (this one, this one, and this one) and they all state that bumblebee queens don't survive their colony, the latter book suggesting an average lifespan of about 6 months for Bombus terrestris. Perhaps the longer lifespans which you refer to is something specific to a small number of atypical species found outside of Europe? Somewhere sub-tropical perhaps, where the pressures relating to the onset of winter are not present. Do you know of any specific examples in the literature? I did a quick google search and everything that came up says the same thing: "annual lifecycle" and "old queen dies before winter". However, when I switched to the suggested search "how long do queen bumble bees live", the first result is: "All being well, a honey bee queen could live for 3 to 4 years, as long as she is free from disease. This is much longer than bumblebee queens or the solitary bee species." So perhaps you saw the 3-4 years bit (which was bolded) and understandably thought that it referred to the organism you were actually searching about?

I think perhaps your experience as a honeybee keeper has confused our conversation a bit. I suspect we are each more familiar a different type of bee! Although I am working on a honeybee project at the moment which is rectifying the gap in my knowledge :)

3 is definitely a zebra swallowtail (E. protesilaus)

5 is a morpho of some type, but not sure which.

I could probably figure them all out if I had my field guides with me. Not sure about texts to recommend but I knew someone with this who recommended it.

Essential Entomology by George McGavin is excellent.

I believe it is a Woolly Gray moth Lycia ypsilon. The coloration appears to be variable, but unlike the images on Bugguide the picture in Caterpillars of Eastern North America matches yours quite well.

While thick, one book you'll probably want to look into is Evolution of the Insects by Grimaldi and Engel. It's required reading in some taxonomy courses. As much as I like physical print for reference books, the digital $17 version looks awfully tempting, and you wouldn't be out too much.

Well, I'd say that's a Very Hungry Caterpillar.

This is correct I just read about it in this really cool book: Adventures Among Ants.

Interesting, and illustrated.

here ya go

Yea... that's why I used the term "displace". Even really small ants like monomorium minimum displace other large insects chemically. They don't hunt the bugs that tend to flee their presence, it's that they present a hazard like a huge pack of small dogs.

When I kept ants I had bizarre first hand experience with chemical displacement. I had a few nests...two were formica pallidefulva and monomorium minimum. By volume the MMs were about 1% the size of the FPs.

So one day I woke up and checked in on my ants and the FP were dying. They were huddled in small groups...some were dead others were sluggish or have "seizures" (all shaky wobbly).

And I noticed the MMs were all over in their nest. The MMs had found a way out of the setup and into the FPs. There was no direct violence or attacks happening...and the MMs weren't eating them. The MMs just wanted the space and their mere presence began to kill the FPs. It was quite a sight...

An awesome book on insect chemical defenses and also on setting up easy experiments to study insects in your yard is..."For the Love of Insects" I learned so much from that book.