Stephen A. Marshall
Firefly Books Ltd.
Buffalo, NY; Richmond Hill, Ontario
2006; 720 pages
ISBN: 978-1-55297-900-6
Price: $95 ($59 Amazon), hardcover 8.5”x11”

Stephen Marshall’s stunning new book, Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity, is a powerful, “must-have” identification tool for anyone eager to identify or learn about (non-marine) arthropods in North America. The size of the book (8.5” x 11”, 720 pages) is proportional to the subject. Fitting an insect fauna for a similarly-sized region into a bird, mammal, or flower-sized field guide format leaves most of the lower-level diversity out. I’m sure many entomologists have picked up smaller field guides “to the insects” that are little more than a tease and which fail to convey one of the most striking things about the insects—their seemingly endless diversity. Of course, Marshall’s book is simply too large for the field! (Perhaps a future edition could include a CD insert that one could transfer and use on a palm-sized computer.) The author notes that despite the book’s regional focus, the keys and photos should be useful for identifying orders and most families worldwide.

The strength of the work is the collection of over 4,000 color photographs of arthropods and their accompanying well-written captions. Most of the images are of living insects in the field, including many uncommon species I’d wager most entomologists have never seen alive. As an entomologist and student of insect photography, it is hard to describe the mix of awe, amazement, and perhaps intimidation at Marshall’s photographic and entomological accomplishment.

Although excellent field guides have been produced to some taxa of northeastern North America, such as the caterpillars, cerambycids, and cicindelines, that include more species of these particular groups than Marshall’s Insects, the impressive breadth of his taxonomic coverage would require many dozens of similar, and as yet unwritten, guides to replicate. There is simply no book approaching the comprehensiveness of Marshall’s. It is in a league of its own.

Following a brief introduction there are twelve chapters, filling over 500 pages, which cover the diversity of insects. Smaller orders are grouped into single chapters and two final chapters (100+ pages) cover non-insect arthropods and ‘Observing, Collecting and Photographing Insects.’ Following this are well illustrated, flow-chart identification keys to families (rarely subfamilies or superfamilies), References, Acknowledgments, an Index of Photographs, and a General Index.

I have purchased multiple copies of this work to ensure its availability to my students as well as myself. These copies have seen one year of use and, despite the somewhat awkward size and weight of the book, have survived with minimal damage.

Each chapter starts with a well illustrated and very informative introductory text. Although one might wonder if the text is redundant with that in other large entomology texts, this is not the case. These introductions are full of information not available in other texts, although without citations they are probably of more value to the general public and introductory students than to advanced students or scientists. I nonetheless found them both enjoyable and valuable to read.

The photography is, for the most part, superb. Most subjects were photographed with even, probably natural, lighting. Some shots, taken either in bright sunlight or with strong flashes, show contrasts of light and dark that obscure details and diminish the quality of the illustration. However, even these photos are useful and despite these minor flaws, the enormous breadth of taxonomic coverage more than compensates. I would much rather see a few suboptimal images among 61 photos of carabids than have fewer photos. The priority here was clearly scientific documentation first and photo artistry second (but a close second!). Some of the images are of pinned specimens (e.g. four of the 61 carabid photos), but these are put to excellent use. For example, Marshall provides a photo of pinned specimens of two Megacephala species juxtaposed to illustrate a diagnostic character.

What is truly astounding about this collection of images is the amount of natural history information they illustrate. Marshall was not only able to photograph a stunning number of arthropods alive in the field, he was able to capture many moments illustrative of their ecology. His photos include images of oviposition, copulation, aggregation, larval (and even pupal) stages, a variety of modes of locomotion, parasitism, phoresy, and of course many instances of feeding—predation, fungivory, herbivory, etc. Such behaviors are difficult enough to find and harder still to capture with a camera.

In preparing this review I could find only minor points to criticize. I sometimes had trouble with the index, which has entries sorted alphabetically below subfamily, but subfamilies are indented and grouped under alphabetically sorted families. This means a casual glance in the index might see the following names in order: Hispinae, Synetinae, Chrysopidae—the first two being indented slightly more than the last because these are subfamilies of the Chrysomelidae. Putting the family names in a bold font might help. The entries below subfamily are in italics so they at least stand out, but don’t go looking for the periodical cicada genus Magicicada under the letter M; you have to look under the entry for the family Cicadidae. It would be simpler to have all entries sorted alphabetically with specific epithets grouped under the entry for a genus.

The keys to families at the end of the book are wonderful. They are flow-chart style, heavily illustrated, and there are keys to larvae of some groups. Although there is a chapter filled with photos of non-insect arthropods, there is unfortunately no corresponding key to these taxa. I have used most of the keys and compared them with more comprehensive keys to families. Certainly there must be something lost in the simplification required for these keys, but I haven’t yet found an example of a misidentification due to their use. The author states clearly that the keys represent a compromise between ease of use and comprehensiveness.

In sum, this book is amazing. It is one of the most frequently used in my personal library and I expect it will remain so for decades to come. I hope the book’s binding is as strong as it seems to be!

Derek Sikes
University of Alaska Museum
Fairbanks, AK
E-mail: ffdss@uaf.edu

American Entomology
Vol. 54, No. 1, Spring 2008