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Species Brachygastra mellifica - Mexican Honey Wasp
The Social Wasps of the Americas Excluding the Vespinae By Richards, O.W.
British Museum (Natural History), 1978
vii + 580 pp. and 4 colour plates. Provides keys to all the genera and species of New World Polistinae. Keys are poorly illustrated and in many cases only useful for experts. Key to Polistes difficult to use because it also includes the numerous Central and South American species. Separation of females of the widespread, hypervariable P. fuscatus from related species often inaccurate. Key to Polistes males does not work for most species.
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Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of the Northeastern Nearctic Region By Matthias Buck, Stephen A. Marshall, and David K. B. Cheung
Biological Survey of Canada [Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification], 2008
The Atlas covers the northeastern part of the North American continent (south to Virginia, west to the Ontario/Manitoba border, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Kentucky). Ninety-two established and six adventitious species are covered by 13 keys from the subfamily to the species level. Keys are accompanied by 437 Figures (mostly high resolution colour photographs) illustrating all important diagnostic characters. Species pages include a set of standard images (636 colour photographs in total) showing lateral and dorsal aspects as well as male and female heads, complemented by images of live specimens where available (many provided by Bugguide contributors!). The variation, distribution and biology of every species is discussed. The work is accompanied by a glossary of scientific terms, and morphological structures are furthermore illustrated in a separate Morphology section. The Atlas is designed both for the amateur and the professional user. With 492 pages, 3 Tables and 1073 Figures (PDF version). An electronic paper published in the Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification No. 5 (19 February 2008). ISSN 1911-2173. Provided in HTML and PDF format. Available online (free access) at http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/ejournal.html.
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Wasp Farm By Howard Ensign Evans
Comstock Publishing, 1963
Essays and life history observations.
Contributed by Cotinis on 21 March, 2004 - 10:14am |
Guide to the Study of Insects (and a Treatise on Those Injurious and Beneficial to Crops) By A. S. Packard, Jr., M.D.
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1878
A wealth of natural history information, although there are a lot of outdated names that require some detective work.
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The Songs of Insects By Lang Elliott, Wil Hershberger
Houghton Mifflin, 2007
A book/CD combination with excellent photos, brief species accounts, and recorded songs of 75 North American species--mostly orthoptera, but a few cicadas as well.
Contributed by Cotinis on 7 January, 2008 - 8:36pm |
Plant-Pollinator Interactions By Nickolas M. Waser and Jeff Ollerton (eds)
The University of Chicago Press, 2006
The editors and contributors of this volume cover important contemporary work in pollination biology, with historic glimpses back to early seminal work by Kölreuter, Sprengel, and others.
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Veterinary Entomology: Arthropod Ecoparasites of Veterinary Importance By Richard Wall and David Shearer
Springer, 1997
Paperback
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Evolution of the Insects By David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel
Wonderfully and copiously illustrated, communicates the current thinking on the evolution and systematics of these complex beings. Because I feel too small to review such a great book, but obviously think it should be prominent on our book list, I quote from Thomas Eisner's statement on the back cover: "A landmark contribution, not just to entomology and evolutionary biology, but to the life sciences as a whole...A must for naturalists, young and old. Truly a definitive work."
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