Butterflies of North America [Paperback]

Jeffrey Glassberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

Lavishly illustrated and user-friendly, this watcher's guide--written by the president of the North American Butterfly Association--will help you distinguish easily identifiable groups of butterflies; shop for and use the new breed of close-range binoculars; create a butterfly-friendly garden; identify different forms of butterfly behavior; and protect their environments. It contains more than 160 species of North American butterflies in 6 families, with large-size photographs of these lovely creatures in the wild. "Glassberg [has an] infectious love of his subject."--Bird Watcher's Digest.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Glassberg [has an] infectious love of his subject.”-Bird Watcher's Digest

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg is president of the North American Butterfly Association and editor of American Butterflies magazine, as well as author and editor of numerous bestselling books about nature watching. He regularly travels around the world to observe and photograph butterflies, and resides in New Jersey.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Friedman/Fairfax Publishing (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586635263
• ISBN-13: 978-1586635268
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,792,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A VERY HELPFUL TOOL., June 18, 2011

By 

D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Butterflies of North America (Paperback)

This review is on the 2010 edition published by Fall River Press.

As with my birding, a passion of mine for over 50 years now, where I carry more than one field guide with me when I am out and about, the same hold true for butterflying. I use Kaufman's guide and I use the one being reviewed here. I don't think that any one single guide is adequate when watching or studying wildlife and to be frank, I get a bit annoyed when I cannot identify a group or species.

There are over 600 known butterflies that make their home in the lower 48 states. This book goes far in giving you the ability to identify a great many of them.

Now this is important! This work will not cover each and every single species and subspecies of butterflies you are likely to encounter, it will cover all of the major ones and it most certainly gives you a good representation of all of the known groups. In the author's words:

"Because many of the six hundred species fund in the Lower 48 states of the United States are very similar to one another, the approach I have taken in this book, with many of these groups, is to allow you to identify an unknown butterfly to group, rather than to species."

"If after experience, you decide that you would like to identify butterflies to specific species, even in difficult groups, then you can use my `Butterflies through Binoculars' series to do so."

Now I am not a lister...yet, so I find this approach quite workable for what I want. I spend a lot of time photographing these creatures and once I make general field notes, get a good shot, then it is easy enough to check specific species...difficult though in many cases if you are not an expert.

I find the photographs in this work to be clear and quite concise. They leave little guess work. They are of excellent quality and composition. The text is quite readable and addresses host plants, something I find invaluable. The author has given us some pretty good range maps and a wonderful introduction to the world of butterflying.

While this may not be the ultimate butterfly book, it is most certainly a good tool and I would hate to work in the field without it.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

2.0 out of 5 stars Butterfly groups, not species, August 27, 2011

By 

Biology teacher (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Butterflies of North America (Paperback)

This is really a guide to groups of butterflies, not species. Not all species are pictured, but characteristics of groups (e.g. elfins, coppers, buckeyes, small satyrs) are described. Each group gets 2 pages, one of which is usually taken up by a full page photo. There are 2-4 photos per group, plus a range map. The half page of text lists sizes, characteristics, habitats, food plants, gardening suggestions, abundance and sometimes miscellaneous bits -- each for the group as a whole. No scientific names are used, although a list is given at the back of the book.
There are introductory chapters on butterfly biology and conservation.
PROs: lovely photographs, gives a sense of the groups
CONs: not useful if you wish to know exactly which of the species you have.