Essential Entomology: An Order-by-order Introduction

This is a very good practical introduction to the major orders of insects, for people who don't have a strong background in advanced biology and don't want one. It does not bog down on extensive keys within the orders, just gives key details about each order.I am volunteering in a university insect collection lab, and this book gives me the information I most need without bogging down in a lot of information I don't need. It is however, a better resource for someone just learning to do insect identification in a university lab, than for instance the Peterson bug guides, which I found to be the next best option.I showed this book to the professor who runs the insect collection, and he said this is a good book. He said that if all of his volunteers knew the contents of this book, he would be very happy.

This text is an excellent assembly of the fundamentals of entomology and a worthy contribution to the field. However, it is no Tripplehorn, the truly essential introductory entomology text. It lacks an identification key, but provides a wealthh of order-level introductory information. This book would serve as a good supplemental text. A nice addition to a personal entomology library.

It’s a standard text book (written in Canadian English)—you know Centre vs. Center. It took forever to come in. Order at least a month before you need it.

Just received my copy. Always wanted to be an entomologist, but life took me in a different direction. Picked up this text book for some light reading, and it's a perfect match of easy-to-understand concepts but with expertise in every sentence.

I love this book,easy to understand.

Perfect!

A super textbook on the introduction on entomology including a description of the various orders. Don't need to be a degree graduate to follow this either. Got this second hand through Amazon and what a find indeed! This book will stay in my collection for regular use for years to come.

The book is a good primer to entomology, as it states, and there is a lot of good information on life history strategies and ecology as well as insect anatomy/physiology. It's got a simple layout and all the classifications are fairly easy to understand. The one big drawback for this book is the immense number of typos. I don't really mind typos because I can always understand what the author means, but it's almost as if this book wasn't even proof read. Sometimes there are a few typos in one page. Aside from this, it's a good introductory book covering evolution of insects, a catalogue of the orders and a section on fieldwork.

A surprisingly interesting book and beautiful illustrations

Excellent book ---the title says it all - essential information in a readable form - I like the way that all technical and scientific terms are highlighted and clearly explained in side notes--well worth the money in my opinion -wish it could have been in hardback though.

Informative