Peterson Field Guide To Moths Of Northeastern North America (Peterson Field Guides)

I bought this to help with my understanding of moths and with making ID's on inaturalist, (Although this is for the Northeastern United States and I live in the Western United States). I really like this book although I have just received it and barely used it so far. Some things I like is clear, good sized drawings of the moths with lines pointing to the identifying features featured in the text and the nice pithy overview paragraph on each family covered. Its really helpful having the anatomy of a moth on the first two pages of the book, instead of having to search the middle of it somewhere for it, as well as the silhouettes on the last pages.I finally ended up biting the bullet and buying the "Moths of Western United States as well". which is NOT a field guide and cost about $100 and goes more in depth to species level, has a large number of understandably smaller photographs, and with great diagrams of taxonomic features I'll never ID in the field but that will help me understand the taxonomic level. The two books seem symbiotic for my needs; I"m hoping the Peterson guide will help me key in on the family, and then to use the MWNA for more precise ID.It would be really nice to have a Peterson's field guide to the moths of (the western United States or the pacific states).

This is the most amazing field guide I've ever seen. The work that must have gone into this book is astounding. The species descriptions are helpful, but it's the photos that are stunning. They are all perfectly lit, cropped, and arranged to make identification easy and accurate. My only issue is that a few of the photos are a little on the small side, so it's hard to see all the detail. But most of the photos are displayed perfectly, so I'm not complaining.I stumbled across this book when I was doing some insect identification with my kids, and it has opened up a whole new world for me. If you're into other forms of nature-watching (particularly birds), beware - you may feel compelled to take up a new hobby. The diversity and beauty of these little guys are every bit as enthralling as birds, and what's more, they come to your porch light at night to visit you! I already have 80+ species on my moth "life list" and I'm looking forward to ID'ing many more. I want to thank the authors for all their hard work, and for revealing a world I never knew existed.

The many excellent color plates in this book should facilitate the identification of numerous species of northeastern U.S. moths, as well as give the reader an appreciation of the wide range of colors and forms exhibited by these intertesting insects. The book begins with some general comments about moths including methods of attracting them for study, photography, identification, taxonomy and conservation. The color plates are accompanied by information about the range and food plants of each species. Because of their mostly nocturnal habits most moths with the exception of the spectacular giant silkworm moths such as: the Cecropia, Polyphemus, Luna and Promethea, as well as some of the large Sphinx moths tend not to be noticed by the average person. This book brought back memories of my childhood. I grew up in the country on the outskirts of a small town near the Mississippi River. On a good night hundreds of moths of every size and color would come to the porch light, and I became interested in insects at a very young age. Now, after more than a half century of "development" the moths seem to have gone the way of the bees. All of the sandhills, wood lots and prairies have been bulldozed flat and replaced with shopping centers, housing developments, roads and parking lots. Now, I rarely see more than a few small, drab colored species at the light.

I found a copy of the older version of this book on the internet, and after reading the reviews that accompanied it, was convinced it was THE book to have-people were raving about it. Well, I was really disappointed in it, and consider it almost unusable-maybe the reviews were just raving mad, not happy? The pictures of the moths were all processed in such an unnatural position, and the quality of the photos was very poor, that trying to ID a live specimen using this book was impossible!Then I found this edition, and after seeing some of the pictures Amazon presented, I was thrilled--at last! A book that was practical!!! No, it may not have all the species of moth you'd find in your area, but it'll have most of them! AND the pictures of each moth are superb! Each moth is photographed in the position you'd likely find the moth in, plus it scale drawings so you know how large the moth might be compared to it's picture! This is an invaluable resource for the person who loves researching the life outside their windows. Really--this book is great!!! I have never been more impressed by a Peterson Field Guide than I have with this one. It's really outstanding, and worth the money.

It's hard to beat a Peterson's guide. I particularly appreciate this one because there are not a lot of publications about moths out there. This one comes complete with wonderful photographs, and all the information you need to identify moths. It's confusing at times, because so many moths look alike, but with this guide, I was able to sort out several species I was unable to without it. Like the bird books, this guide has information about range, but also includes information about host plants, or what kind of environment in which the particular moth could be found. Mothing is not the most popular hobby, but serious moth-ers put out lights and sheets and then photograph their moths to create their "collection" rather than kill the creatures they want to identify. This information is also covered in the guide, which was, frankly, a revelation to me. I love this guide because it opens up a whole world of moths I never really thought about until a facebook friend began posting beautiful moth pictures. I'm hooked now. This guide is just the beginning, I'm sure.