Insects of the Texas Lost Pines (W. L. Moody Jr., Natural History
Series, No. 33)
S. W. Taber and S. B. Fleenor
Texas A&M University Press, College Station
2003, 296 pages
Price: cloth $50.00, paperback $24.95
ISBN 1-58544-236-4
This is the third book by Taber, whose previous works include Fire Ants
and The World of the Harvester Ants (Texas A&M University Press). My
attention was immediately drawn to this book because it covers a small
but interesting area of Texas biodiversity. The Lost Pines of Texas is
characterized by disjunct populations of loblolly pines (Pinus taeda),
mixed with Post Oak Savanna and Tall Grass Prairie that support a
diverse community of plants and animals more closely linked to their
eastern counterparts than those of central Texas. Though often an
excellent source of information, regional titles like this are not
common. I applaud the authors and publisher for taking the initiative to
see this book printed.
The authors begin by outlining why they were drawn to this area. Their
primary reason was because of the area’s isolation and unique features.
The Lost Pines marks the westernmost limit of its namesake species, the
loblolly pine. The region encroaches upon an invisible biogeographical
barrier that passes north to south through the United States, forming
“an ecological continental divide, separating the country’s eastern
flora and fauna from its western flora and fauna.” (p. 3) Second, the
biodiversity of the region has never been investigated comprehensively
and has never been “subjected to close scientific scrutiny” (p. 6). And,
finally, this region is at the center of an escalating controversy that
pits government agencies against land developers, homeowners, and other
private citizens in a bid to save the Houston toad (Bufo houstonensis)
from extinction.
The book is organized into 15 chapters, two appendixes (“Endemic Texas
Insects Occurring in the Lost Pines” and “Exotic Animals Occurring in
the Lost Pines”), and a seemingly thorough bibliography and index.
Unfortunately, I found several issues with the book that detract from
its ultimate usefulness. Chapter 1 provides an informative introduction
to the Lost Pines. Chapter 2, entitled “The Lost Pines as a Setting for
Animal Life,” discusses the geology, soil, vegetational zones, and the
loblolly pines themselves, with two paragraphs included on the future of
the Lost Pines. The order of the remaining 13 chapters is unclear and
does not follow a recognizable phylogenetic or alphabetical pattern. The
chapters seem like artificial assemblages (Chapter 13 is titled
“Silverfish, Scorpionflies, Foot-spinners, Millipedes, and Centipedes”).
The authors’ only statement unifying these groups is, “The insects of
this chapter are distantly related to one another and to the more
familiar insects that comprise each of the major orders. The many-legged
millipedes and centipedes are of course not insects at all.” Species
discussed within chapters are not placed in a recognizable arrangement
either. In Chapter 9, Erythemis simplicicollis can be found on p. 188,
and its congener, E. vesiculosa, is on p. 192; five genera are found
between the two. Members of the same family also not grouped together.
The book includes 209 black-and-white photographs, primarily of pinned
museum specimens and often with multiple species per image. In many of
these photographs, I could not recognize the species I am familiar with.
I found at least one photograph misidentified; fig. 164 on p. 197 is
labeled as a blue-fronted dancer (Argia apicalis), but it is actually a
species of common spreadwing (Lestes), a member of another family. Also,
though I realize color is expensive and this may well have been the
publisher’s decision, the lack of color and choice of photographs
detract from the book’s overall value.
The taxa chosen for inclusion seem to be the more charismatic species
and those that the authors could otherwise easily obtain, which reduces
the book’s utility as a thorough report of the species found in the
area. The choice of taxa covered is unclear and uneven, despite the
intended goal of “presenting the known distributions of the
invertebrates of the Lost Pines” (p. 9). For example, 23 species of
Odonata, 36 species of Heteroptera, 25 species of butterflies, 7 species
of moths, and 70 species of Coleoptera are covered. I know of at least
63 species of Odonata found in the Lost Pines; and at a 200-acre
University of Texas field station in the middle of the Lost Pines, 90
species of butterflies and more than 1,000 species of moths have been
documented. The skippers are a group that are conspicuously absent from
this treatment. The authors state that they chose to include species
“that have seldom or never been illustrated before,” yet I kept thinking
of the many color photographs taken in situ of these taxa that are
widely published and would have improved this book.
The authors use common names in addition to scientific names throughout
the book, but I found many examples of the former that don’t correspond
to the recognized lists of these names for many groups. For example,
within the Odonata, I found that five (22%) of the common names were
incorrect (based on the accepted names of the Dragonfly Society of the
Americas). If the authors’ intention was to provide a useful
identification guide to the species found in the Lost Pines, I believe
more attention should have been given to the section devoted to similar
species. For example, on p. 189, the species Libellula flavida is
reported as “a species easily mistaken,” but there are no species listed
with which it could be confused.
Finally, the reader is left wondering what methodology the authors used
in conducting research for this book. They never state how long they
worked in the Lost Pines, or when or where they conducted their
research. This leaves the reader with no basis to interpret what the
authors mean when they remark on commonness or rarity of particular
species. Despite the statement on p. 10 about the level of peer review
that is expected of scientific work, I was left wondering what intensity
of peer review this work received before publication. Despite these
difficulties, the book does begin to fill an important niche in the
ecological literature, in that the Lost Pines is a wonderful isolated
region that deserves further study.
John C. Abbott
Section of Integrative Biology
University of Texas
Austin
American Entomologist
Vol. 51, No.3, Fall 2005
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