Customer Reviews

Butterflies of the East Coast: An Observer's Guide

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This long-awaited book from the president and vice-president of the New York Butterfly Club, a decade in development, covers all regularly occurring butterfly species (about 250) in the eastern coastal plain and Appalachian region of the United States from Maine to Florida. Four introductory chapters cover where, when and how to look for butterflies. These chapter cover a broad range of topics: of life history, biology, mating, behavior, ecology, with an emphasis on host plants and feeding. These chapters include discussion of host generalists and specialists, and highlight the importance of recognizing the host plants in order to find specialist species. There is extensive coverage of habitats and phenology, flight, and diapause. The book is generally free of jargon, but the authors tackle some weighty biological issues both in the introductory chapters and the introduction to each family. Each species account includes beautiful photographs of the butterfly (often both male and female, usually both dorsal and ventral) as well as one or more host plants. The latter is a special emphasis on this book. Range maps are clear. Additional information covers the larval hosts, the species range, and a brief ecological account. Identification details are abbreviated, considering that this book is not a field guide. It is meant to be used in conjunction with field guides such as Jeff Glassberg's "Butterflies through Binoculars", which has both an Eastern and a Florida volume. The book is engagingly-written, well-edited, and beautifully illustrated. Reviewed by Michael Gochfeld, author "Butterflies of New Jersey" (Rutgers Press).

I hesitated quite a while before purchasing this book. Afterall, I already owned "Butterflies Through Binoculars" and the Kaufmann Butterfly Field Guide (really great books), as well as the Audubon Society and Peterson butterfly field guides (very good books), so why should I buy yet another one? How could they possibly contain more useful information than what the other books posessed? Well, I was swayed by the other Amazon reviews, bought the book, and am very happy that I did. This book contains lots of information not available in the others, including more detailed ecological, behavioral, range, and regional differences information. The range maps are far more detailed than range maps included in the other guides. Even Skippers are given in-depth treatment. The photographs are marvelous. The book is aptly subtitled "An Observer's Guide," rather than classified as a "field guide." The book is too bulky to be an ideal field reference, and the text and illustrations do not emphasize field identification over ecology. The book could serve adequately as a field guide, but ideally one would own both a field guide for carrying in one's back pack, and this book for more in-depth reading at home. As with the other butterfly field guides mentioned above, this book does not provide many illustrations of butterfly larvae, but just recently two excellent caterpillar books have been published and are available through Amazon, "Caterpillars in the Field and Garden: A field guide to the butterfly caterpillars of North America," and "Caterpillars of Eastern North America" (fabulous coverage of moth, as well as butterfly, caterpillars). But Butterflies of the East Coast contains a wealth of other information not included in the other field guides, and I heartily recommend purchasing this book to supplement whatever field guide you may already posess, it should greatly enhance your pleasure in observing butterflies.

Although this book is coffee table sized and like a coffee table book has gorgeous large sized butterfly pictures throughout, I believe that any active observer or even collector of butterflies anywhere in the states of the east coast from Maine to Florida, the area covered by this book will want to have it with them in the field or at least nearby in the car.
Of introductory pages which are found in many butterfly books the ones in this book are the best treatment I've ever read and would be of interest to anyone wanting to understand a little more about butterflies in general. These pages include where and when to find east coast butterflies, what to look for and how to look or photograph, information on conservation, life history, and hostplants (the plants the caterpillar eats). This book is somewhat unique in the coverage it gives to hostplants and only a few very recent books have given as much space to this important part of butterfly biology. Knowing the food plant is extremely helpful in knowing where and when to look for many species of butterflies.
After the introductory material are the full page species accounts of each of the butterflies found in the east coast states. Here is where the book shines with excellent photographs of the butterflies including males and females, ventral and dorsal views, information on identification, habits and habitats, occurrence, broods, overwintering, and finally, in depth hostplant coverage including outstanding plant photographs which in many cases are better than those found in plant identification guides.
And now all we need is for Rick and Guy to move to the west coast and do a similar treatment of the butterflies here.

Fred Heath, author of "An Introduction to Southern California Butterflies"

I bought this for my nephew living in Massachusetts. It is an indispensable guide for butterfly watching on the East coast.

This is an excellent serious work, not a field guide. The illustrations are all clear color photographs with the best field identifications, range maps and lists of brooding plants I have seen. It is also the most comprehensive for the East Coast of the U. S.. My interest is creating a butterfly garden. It would have benefitted from a list of common names, illustrations of the chrysalides, and a list of food plants, but otherwise it is a wonderfully complete scholarly work.

There are many fine points of this excellent work. The most amazing is the pictures. There are usually 2-3 pictures adults of the same species which to me is most beneficial because of the variances of markings and colorings within a species. I have had to have 3 or 4 references sometimes to identify the correct species. There is also pictures of caterpillars and plants that they eat.
The text is well organized (species by species) into general information, identification, habitat, hostplants, occurrence, and ecology. There are also maps of range and actual size of wingspan to help identify a butterfly. The information that is given is short, excellent, and easy to understand. The introduction is a great chapter on how to find butterflies, when to find them, what to look for, and how to look for butterflies.
If you want good information on east coast butterflies this is an outstanding text. I strongly recommend it.
The only minimal gripe might be the size and weight of the book. If you plan to carry it on hikes it may be cumbersome. But for all the info that is inside it, is well worth taking with you.

Georgeous Book! This is a beautiful and informative book. If you live on the East Coast it is a must have for the butterfly observer.

Not a book that is easily carried around in the field (though I just heard there is a softcover) this book provides much more in depth information on each species compared to other field guides. Great buy!

This book (Cech and Tudor) is perhaps the best nature guidebook ever, definitely the best butterfly or insect book. It is a beautifully illustrated guide to the animals and their natural habitats on the east coast, where I live. It covers most butterflies for the central U. S. and eastern Canada as well, and similar coverage for Texas (with the greatest diversity of all) and the west coast would be great if they could do this project as well.

What part do beauty, grace and harmlessness play for the tough to get going when the going gets tough? According to authors Rick Cech and Guy Tudor, Charles Darwin would say none. For Darwin's survival of the fittest means being as ferocious, speedy and strong as lions and tigers and bears. Yet beautiful, graceful, harmless butterflies have been around much longer than ferocious bears, speedy tigers and strong lions.

As of 1992, 44 fossil records were "officially described" for butterflies. The oldest butterfly fossils date back 48 million years. They were found in Colorado and Texas. They were of metalmarks, nymphalids and swallowtail-like types

But butterflies probably first showed up 60-145 million years ago, along with the first land-growing plants. They make up the largest numbers of plant-eating insects. That's quite a big deal. Only 9 of 29 insect orders have learned to eat plants. Many plants are hard to chew, with thick or waxy outsides. Others are poisonous or friendly to parasitic flies and wasps.

So are butterflies the flighty, intellectual lightweights of the insect world? No, say the authors. In fact, the phrase "bright as a butterfly" means colorful and intelligent. For example, beautifully colored patterns identify Baltimores, Monarchs, Pipevine Swallowtails and Zebra Heliconians as poisonous plant-eaters. Heliconians have a "large mushroom body in their brains thought to be associated with learning." They live at least 6 months, the longest butterfly lifespan. [Mourning cloaks live 11 months. But they sleep through late summer and winter.] They go to the same home every evening, show younger Zebras a regular route of pollen flowers and foodplants, and don't beat against florescent lights.

However, the authors think caterpillars mightn't be so smart. I'm not sure I agree. It's a challenge outrunning cold, disease, drought, fungi, mold, pesticides and storms. It's a bigger challenge keeping out of harm's way from ambush and assassin bugs, ants, birds, lizards, people, robberflies, small mammals and spiders.

It's a still bigger challenge being born and getting fed. For example, the naughty passionvine is a plant butterflies lay eggs on. It makes "false eggs" so the butterfly thinks the space is already taken. Or its nectar glands attract ants that eat buttefly eggs. Or it sends up "decoy tendrils" to drop and break butterfly eggs. Or it sends out sharp hooks to kill by catching, or putting holes in, butterfly caterpillars.

BUTTERFLIES OF THE EAST COAST tells what Atlantic state butterflies look like, what they eat and where they live. The pictures are clear. The information is well organized. I've seen butterfly gardening work: the butterflies and fireflies of childhood are back! How does this book make the world also safe - from pesticides and people - for butterfly children? It comes down to doing what Virginia Tech's advanced master gardeners say: reduce, reuse, recycle. Stop spraying and swatting caterpillars we'll now recognize as butterfly wannabes. Let nature's cycle of life and food chain work. And photograph the caterpillars the authors didn't find.