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