Customer Reviews

Spiders of the North Woods (North Woods Naturalist)

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4 star:		(1)
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As of this time, there aren't many reasonably priced field guides to spiders available. Although this book is small and limited in the number of species described, it's a good starter field guide for those who would like to learn some of the basics for identifying common spiders of the northeastern part of North America. Weber has done a good job of selecting spiders that are most likely to be encountered in fields, gardens, forests and around buildings. The guide is divided into sections for each Family, with line drawings of typical identifying features, along with brief descriptions of appearance, habitat, web type, hunting technique employed by the spider, etc.. Within each of these sections, are several examples of genera in the family, each illustrated with one or more photographs and accompanying notes to assist in identification. Most of the photographs are quite clear, and marked with a small arrow pointing to the most recognizable feature for that spider. A simple graphic "size bar" illustrates the typical size of males and females of each of the spiders contained in the guide. In addition to the identification sections, the book also contains good introductory information on the anatomy and natural history of spiders. There's also a small chapter on observing spiders - where to find them, spider behaviour, etc.. All in all, it's a good book considering the limitations of its size. For anyone who wants to get started learning about spiders, it's a valuable little field guide and will probably teach you enough of the basics of identification to at least have a reasonably good idea which Family a spider belongs to, and perhaps even identify some to species.

The approach, information, and design of this book make it much more user-friendly than older guides. This book is a pleasure to read, and it has everything you need to identify and learn about the spiders of the area covered.

This book was purchased a little over a month ago as an after thought since I already have books on spiders. I wish I had found it long ago. It is a great help in identifying the spiders I run into while out bug hunting in the woods, and those encountered inadvertently around the house, barn, garden, and yard. I like the format of this series of books, North Woods Naturalist Series. The format is well thought out, easy to use, and the photos are clear. It is a field guide with no ponderous dichotomous keys and drawings to labor through.

The pointing arrows to key characters, with the explanation in the narrative is a time saver, when it comes to making the ID. As mentioned, I have other spider books (Spiders of North America by Ubick, Paquin, Cushing, and Roth; an older copy of How To Know The Spiders by Kaston; and the Spider Book by Comstock). With that said, when I find spider I don't recognize and want to ID, the first book reached for now is Spiders of the North Woods by Weber.

Although this book is directed at the spiders found in the North Woods, it is not limited to spiders found here. I have seen the Nursery Web Spider in Chattanooga, TN, and a Spitting Spider in Hobbs, NM, both of which are easy to identify using this book.

Larry Lilly---

if only this company would expand these books to cover a wider area, this is how a field guide should be done!

This is an amazing field guide and much more. Field guides often completley omit natural history, which this one includes. The photography is outstanding. This book is probaly relevant quite a ways outside of the range it covers - many of the spiders have wide distributions outside of the north woods. As an example, my horrified sister who had just moved into a woodland lot in NC by water called me with a massive spider on her window screen. Having heard the description we narrowed it to fishing spiders, and later the ID of the dark fishing spider was confirmed. I love this book and am going to buy the whole series. If you live anywhere near the range or even outside it, I would reccomend this. It is far better than the more expensive Spiders of the Eastern United States: A Photographic Guide, which includes inferior photgraphy - much of the photos appear to be from dead spiders.

At 200 pages, it's not the thickest field guide, but spider fans in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region will find plenty to like in Spiders of the North Woods. The photos are beautiful, the illustrations are very competent, and descriptions are clear and easy to understand, even for amateurs.

I'm in Illinois, somewhat south of the region covered by this book, but many of the species are applicable to my region, and the book is useful for narrowing down the genus or family of a "near-miss." I suspect it will be useful to anyone in the upper eastern half of the U.S.

In addition to listings of the most common north woods spiders, this book offers a good foundation in basic spider anatomy, biology, and lifestyle.

I've been pleased with all of the "North Woods" series.

This is an outstanding book. It is easy to read, identify, and understand. Great because this spider book shows the spider size by including the legs not just the body. Perfect for every parent with a child who asks questions about spiders. Our kids are learning so much and so are we.