Insects + Spiders

There are many useful books to help amateurs identify insects. Most of these focus on identifying the insect and helping the reader understand how they interact with the environment.

Garden Pests, Diseases & Good Bugs takes a different approach. It just focuses on the insects that you will find in your garden. The goal is to help you figure out which insects are beneficial and which insects will cause issues. This can help you find natural, non-toxic ways to control the pest species.

This book is essential reading if you are a gardener.

How Is The Book Organized?

The book is organized into four main parts:

• Part A: Prelude
• Part B: Beneficial Organisms
• Part C: Pests
• Part D: Diseases, Disorders and Deficiencies

Each part has a brief introduction before diving straight into the insect descriptions. This brevity is useful: it doesn’t overwhelm the reader but still gives them enough information to understand the featured insects. Each part is broken down into multiple chapters organized by themes such as parasites or pollinators.

The species profiles are organized so that one page has photos and one page has text. Unlike other books, a species doesn’t get it’s own dedicated page. This means that there can be multiple species on the one page. In some cases, a species will be introduced on one page but the pictures aren’t provided until the next page.

This can make it difficult for those flipping through the book to find an image of the insect. It does mean extra work, but it’s worth it.

Part B: Beneficial Organisms

This section of the book is dedicated to the good insects in your garden. In these chapters, Denis talks about:

• what the insect looks like
• when and where you are likely to find them
• what pest they target

The chapters are organized into the types of good species. There are individual chapters on parasites, predatory insects, other predators, pollinators and recyclers. The other predator chapter features non-insects such as birds, arachnids and reptiles. The images show the insect at multiple points in it’s life cycle.

I would have liked there to have been more information about attracting the beneficial insects to your garden. However, the book was already pretty lengthy at 464 pages. I use this section to help me identify a specific insect so I can do additional research.

Part C

This section forms the bulk of the book. There are over 200 pages just dedicated to pest species.

The species profiles feature the similar information to those featured in the beneficial organisms section.  He also covers:

• the plants the insects attack
• symptoms of infection
• how to control them

The accompanying photos were very useful. Images are provided of species at multiple points in its life cycle. Some images also showed the physical evidence that a species had targeted that plant.

The information in each chapter is broken down according to the type of species such as beetle and caterpillar. The specificity of the species profiles does vary. Multiple species are featured. In some cases, the chapter features the specific species. In others, the feature only covers the type of species such as a cup both. This can make it difficult to identify exactly what you’ve found, especially if the specimen doesn’t look like the featured images. However, this guide should help helping you narrow it down to family or genus.

This part was incredibly useful. I got the most out of this section by flipping through to find image of an insect or symptom that looked familiar.

Part D: Diseases, Disorders and Deficiencies

It is important that you correctly identify what is impacting on a plants health so you can take the right action to treat it. In many cases, this is caused by the insects. In others, however, it is caused by tinier lifeforms or something different. This section helps readers identify what is causing any issues.

There are four chapters in this part:

• Bacterial Diseases
• Fungal diseases
• Viruses
• Other plant problems

The fungal disease chapter is the largest at over 50 pages.. For each issue, Crawford discusses the symptoms, the plants on which they occur, the conditions that favour them. He shares about how to prevent and control the disease. He also writes about things that may be confused with a plant disease, such as nutritional deficiencies. These chapters are accompanied with images that show how a diseases presentation may vary.

This part may not be relevant for those who are focusing on identifying bug species, however it is relevant to those who are trying to increase the health of their garden.

Do I recommend it?

This book is highly recommended to any gardener. It will help you learn so much about your garden and help you create a healthier ecosystem.

I wouldn’t recommend it for beginner naturalists. Backyard Insects would be a much more useful book.

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I love butterflies. They are one of the easier insect species to see in a garden and are very beautiful to examine up close. Observers will quickly learn that being easy to see doesn’t mean that a butterfly is always easy to identify.

The Complete Field Guide To Butterflies Of Australia aims to help readers learn how to identify various species. The guide features all of the butterfly species on Australia’s mainland and remote islands. This review explores whether the guide is useful for beginners.

The introduction is information overload.

The readability of the introductory chapters in insect field guides is often varied. Authors have to tie a fine line between providing enough information for both the amateur and professional entomologist. This guide leaned towards the more advanced audience.

My main struggle was the lack of space. The authors condensed a lot of information into a short amount of space and didn’t have many page breaks. I understand the need for brevity, especially when you consider that this book is one of the longer guides at 397 pages. The sheer amount of information, however, was quite overwhelming.

The section on the adult structure was adequately explained. The first image, which showed the main parts of the body of an adult butterfly, was simple compared to the later ones. It very quickly gets complex, especially when you look at the adult wing structure. In some cases, you had to flip over the page to find an image that matched the description on the previous page. Those who are new to insect identification are likely to struggle and will need to return to these pages.

The section of habitats was four pages of information, followed by five pages with images of habitat examples. This would have been more practical if the images were included with the original text. The life cycle section was more helpful in this regard.

Species profiles

One of the problems when creating a comprehensive guide is that you have to be aware of space limitations. The authors were limited to three species per page, which limited the amount of information they could feature. The notes are still pretty comprehensive.

Profiles feature notes on the butterflies other names, wingspan, similar species, variations, behaviour, habitat, status and larval food plants. The length of each section varies depending on the species. In some cases, the ‘similar species’ section has a brief sentence explaining the features that make that particular species unique. In more complex cases, the section can take up half of the profile.

With most profiles, you get four colour plates. These show the underside and upperside of both genders. In some cases, a third column is added to show variations such as subspecies, regional forms and seasonal forms. Where necessary, the line drawings of critical structures needed for identification are included.

The various species are organized into the six different butterfly families: swallowtails, skippers, whites and yellows, nymphs, metalmarks and blues. There is also a smaller section on species found on Australia’s islands. No further information is given on the families with these sections; you have to refer to the lone paragraphs in the “How To Identify Butterflies’ section in ‘How To Use This Book.’

How does it differ from the first edition?

In the original text, 416 butterfly species were recognized, with 398 known from the continent. The remaining species were found on the remote island territories. By the publication of the second edition, those numbers had risen to 435 and 408 respectively.

The sections on higher classification, distribution and habitats, and life cycle and behaviour in the introduction have had substantial revisions. There is a new chapter on collecting and preserving butterflies and, for most species, the flight charts and distribution maps have been updated. There are also 106 new colour images of set butterflies that have been added to the colour plates. In some cases, these images have replaced the previous ones.

Do I recommend it?

I wouldn’t recommend it for most beginners. The content is brilliant; however, the comprehensiveness can lead to overwhelm. Instead, I’d recommend tracking down a regional or statewide guide to build up your knowledge of butterflies.

I would recommend it to those who are sure they want to focus on butterflies and those who are likely to travel to multiple parts of Australia.

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I love trying to identify the insects in my backyard, but it can be tricky. There are a lot of great entomology books available, but very few targeted at the complete newbie.

A Naturalist’s Guide To The Insects Of Australia is one of just two books available targeted at beginners. It’s an identification guide that features 292 species of insect that are reasonably common in Australia. The simplicity makes it easier to try and figure out what species you have seen.

How Is It Structured?

Like other guides in the series, most of the book is dedicated to the species profiles. The species are grouped according to the insect type, which is listed at the top of the page. In some cases, these are broad (such as stick insects.) In other cases, the description is narrowed down further (narrow-winged damselflies.)

I found this approach to be a lot more beginner-friendly than other guides. Miniature Lives required users to pay more attention to morphological features and habitat. Insects of South-Eastern Australia asks readers to observe how the insect interacts with the environment. These are essential skills, but can initially be overwhelming.

There is a broad diversity of species covered. This includes eight mantids, four waterbugs, 11 ants, nine wasps, three types of leaf beetle and 15 cockroaches. I was impressed with the section on beetles as it featured a lot of species I’d found locally.

The introductory content is brief at just seven pages. Five pages are dedicated to providing an overview of insect families. The brevity and small text made it hard to visualize. I much preferred the version in Miniature Lives.

Species profiles

I tend to judge a field guide by how useful the species profiles are. I’m a beginner, so the profiles must be easy to understand.

The profiles are of good quality, considering the space limitations. There are no spaces between different sections of the profile; however, this is common in guides that contain a lot of species. The lack of white space does make it harder to flick through.

The profiles contain a physical description of the species and information about their distribution, habitat and habits. The physical description is often pretty vague. The profiles describe what a specimen looks like but doesn’t explain how to be sure of the identification. This makes sense for a beginners guide but also has the potential for misidentification. The habitats and habits section is pretty comprehensive. The habits discuss feeding, egg-laying and defensive behaviour. I was able to learn a lot from this section, and it is great if you are just flipping through the guide.

Most of the pictures in the guide are clear, and it is easy to see the key features. Occasionally, some parts of the image are out of focus or the image is too dark. In these cases, you’ll likely need to seek out additional images to confirm. Due to the small size of the book, it can also be difficult to get a good view of the key features.

In most cases, you get one photo per species but occasionally you get two. For some moth or butterfly species, you only get pictures of the caterpillar (such as the painted cup moth or uraba lugens). This is very much appreciated, as both are species I sought help with identifying when I first started.

Do I recommend it?

I would recommend it for beginners as long as you are aware of the limitations. Backyard Insects is of a higher standard and is easier to read, but it doesn’t have the same diversity of species as this guide.

I don’t believe the format is enough for insect identification; however, the beginner can still learn a lot. It depends on how much you are trying to learn and just how much work you are willing to do yourself. I would recommend it to the person who likes to browse to find an image before doing additional research.

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Many people associate cockroaches with the pest species found in households and workspaces. This is understandable; cockroaches can carry disease and are associated with unhygienic conditions.

When you look beyond the pest label, however, they are quite fascinating. There is a lot of variation among the Australian cockroaches; with some species having beautiful markings. David Rentz has created a brilliant guide that helps readers identify most of the 550 described species found locally.

It is useful for both the amateur and the expert

I have reviewed a lot of field guides for this site. I’ve noticed that most guides tend to target either the amateur or the professional entomologist, but rarely both.

A Guide To Cockroaches is one of those rare books that find the balance between audiences. It is accessible and newbie-friendly but doesn’t shy away from the complicated details. Readers will be able to identify most Australian species; however, some may require significantly more work. It is the type of guide that will always be relevant.

The introductory content is very comprehensive

Rentz passion is evident throughout the whole book, however it was most noticeable during the chapters that weren’t about identification. He covered a lot of ground in just 72 pages.

The morphology section was really useful. You get images detailing the features of cockroach wing ventilation, their front head, leg details and a fully winged male cockroach. Rentz also provides images of possible variations of features, such as the tarsal claw type and the subgenital plates of males. It probably will still be overwhelming for beginners, but that’s more due to the complexity of species identification

The chapter on collection and preservation was brief but also detailed. Rentz discussed the various ways of collecting cockroaches, detailing both the positives and negatives of each technique. He explored the difference between day and night collecting, as well as how to mount or pin the cockroach. There is also a decent amount of information about preparing genitals.

My favourite chapter was on the personalities of those who had previously studied cockroaches. It was just seven pages but is the type of information you rarely find in a field guide. It was fascinating learning about their history.

Species profiles

There are over 530 species of cockroach found in Australia. Like so much in entomology, the field is poorly studied. The species profiles do a great job of detailing the key identifiable features in just a couple of chapters.

The pictures are of high quality, which isn’t always possible when photographing insects. Most species get one image; however, you can get up to seven where necessary. The photos show differences due to geographical variations, such as with Euzosteria tuberculata. Other profiles show the differences between gender and morph. A map is provided for each species, showing the distribution within Australia and individual states.

The written content is comprehensive, considering the space limitations. The profiles go into detail about the key features and any similarities to other cockroaches. There is information on early instars, preferred habitat and differences between genders. Rentz also includes species that hasn’t been formally studied and mentions any gaps in knowledge.

Do I recommend it?

For most people, no. Like many in this series, there are more practical books for beginners; especially those who stick to suburbia. I would recommend either the guide to beetles or spiders.

If you have the slightest interest in cockroaches, then I recommend this book. David Rentz has done an impressive job both piquing and encouraging the interest of those who want to learn more. I wish all guides were this useful.

The book is now out of print. You can see places to buy a digital copy at CSIRO Publishing.

I never expected to become interested in mosquitoes. The ones I observed around central Geelong seemed dull compared to many other types of insects. This changed when I started following one of the co-authors, Dr Cameron Webb, on twitter. He frequently tweets about science communication, entomology and mosquitoes. I bought this book on a whim after Dr Webbs tweets had piqued my interest. It’s ended up becoming one of my favourite books in this series.

The introductory content is very user friendly.

The introductory chapters cover a wide range of information targeted at different audiences. There is information on the biology, habitats, publish health risks, controlling mosquitoes near homes and how to collect mosquitoes. This means that amateurs, ecologists and public health officials can all get a solid background. Enthusiasts and citizen scientists don’t need to read all of these chapters; however, they are a useful reference.

The main criticism is the two graphics that detail the morphology and general structure of mosquitoes. It would have been helpful if these were accompanied by better descriptions. Multiple graphics are crammed into two pages with little context. Later, it becomes evident that these are visual representations of features that are mentioned in the species profiles. It does make it slightly more difficult for beginners.

Species Profiles

The authors described this book as ‘a pictorial guide to some of the most important, most interesting and most beautiful mosquito species in Australia.’ Around 80 of Australia’s 300 species are featured. I was disappointed that they didn’t include more species; especially as the guide was just 217 pages. However, I can understand the need to limit it to the ones most commonly found or of importance.

1-2 pages are dedicated to each species. The profiles cover the species physical description, habitat, distribution and pest status. Readers will likely need to refer to the morphological descriptions until you get the hang of the terminology.

The number of pictures varies. In some cases, you get just one picture of an adult. In others, you also get the picture of the larva and pupa. These images sufficed for me; however, I’ve only used the guide to identify about 5 species.

The habitat information is pretty comprehensive, considering the limited space. These sections cover:

• uncommon places to find them
• whether little is known about the dispersal range
• how far the species will, or won’t, travel from its larval habitat

Do I recommend it?

I wouldn’t recommend it for most beginners. It pains me to say that, as it is a great book and is very user friendly.

Mosquitoes aren’t as easy to observe in the wild as other species, such as beetles and spiders. In many cases, you will have to collect the eggs and larvae to rear the mosquitoes before being able to identify it. There are also some types of traps you can use. The chapter on how to collect, rear and photograph mosquitoes discusses these in detail.

Alternately, you can try to get a photo of a mosquito while one is biting you. From experience, it can be tricky trying to get a clear macro photo of all the identifiable features.

Some may find it too overwhelming to obtain the mosquitoes to identify them. I would recommend that beginners choose a species that is easier to observe, especially if it’s their first time trying to identify insects.

I would highly recommend it for those who have an existing interest in mosquitoes and want to try to collect them. It’s a brilliant guide if you are prepared for the extra work.

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