David L. Wagner
Princeton Field Guides
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
2005, 512 pp.
Price: $60.00, hard cover; $29.95, soft cover
ISBN: 0-691-12143-5
Butterflies and moths are among our most beloved animal
colleagues and have received near-vertebrate levels of attention from scientists
and amateur naturalists alike. Their immature stages, however, have usually
lacked comparable popularity, at least among Western adults. Caterpillars have,
at worst, been vilified as pest enemies, sometimes rising to the level of
admiration for their rags-to-riches metamorphosis to the colorful adults.
Ask most small children, however, and they will identify
caterpillars as familiar playmates and fascinating subjects of observation.
Children, and those of us who retain this childlike fascination throughout our
lives, have until now had limited resources for identifying these marvelous
little animals outside of the scattered and technical scientific literature.
Considering the abundance, diversity, and exuberant shapes and colors of
caterpillars, this has been a major gap in North American field guides.
David Wagner of the University of Connecticut has filled this
gap in grand style with an attractive volume in the Princeton Field Guide
series. Wagner has used his extensive field experience with natural history and
close-up photographic skills, honed from years of producing U.S. Forest Service
caterpillar guides, to produce a popular reference for common eastern North
American caterpillars.
Although the book makes no attempt to cover microlepidopteran
larvae, for larger species the guide should be reasonably comprehensive for
everyday use, treating and illustrating almost 700 species, about 400 of them
with full-page coverage. For each species, an outstanding high-quality color
photo of the caterpillar tops the page, with a color photo inset below of the
adult moth or butterfly preceding the text covering Recognition
characters, Occurrence of the species in terms of habitat and geographic
distribution, Common Foodplants, and general Remarks, which often
include interesting aspects of behavior and/or variability in appearance.
Novices will find it easy to match up caterpillars merely by flipping though the
pages, and more experienced entomologists will like the organization into
lepidopteran families, color-coded on the top outer page corners for easy
reference.
In addition to the bulk of the text surveying common eastern
North American caterpillars, the book contains a highly useful introductory
section with brief treatments of several topics including morphology,
caterpillar look-alikes, how to find and rear caterpillars, and basic aspects of
lepidopteran natural history and classification. Of special note in this
introductory part are the excellent illustrated primer to photographing
caterpillars; the short but insightful section on collecting, vouchering, and
conservation; and the list of caterpillar projects for students that schools and
nature centers should find helpful. The book concludes with a glossary of common
terms, a generous list of additional useful references, and indexes by foodplant
and caterpillar.
The hardbound copy I have is very attractively produced and
sturdily constructed. It is sized for easy field use, if a bit on the large and
heavy size for most pockets. Princeton has meticulously reproduced Wagner’s
artful color photographs; the book is simply a pleasure to look through even for
nonentomologists.
In summary, this is a delightfully presented yet
scientifically rigorous addition to the North American field guide literature.
As a teacher of university courses in insect biology and classification, I will
use this book heavily; yet it is attractive and simply written enough to be much
more widely appealing for children, teachers, and indeed anyone with interest in
natural history. David Wagner is to be congratulated for communicating his
knowledge of the Lepidoptera so clearly and appealingly to the rest of us.
