| 
A Key West Bed and Breakfast....
Boasting an incomparable location at the midpoint of Duval Street, The Tropical Inn is a quiet and private island compound. You might walk down Key West's most famous promenade a hundred times and not notice this romantic hideaway, tucked unassumingly away just steps from all the bustle and excitement |
|
|
| Butterflies of the East Coast: An Observer's Guide | 
 enlarge | Authors: Rick Cech, Guy Tudor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $16.99
You Save: $12.96 (43%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 293905
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 8.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0691090564
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.7890974
EAN: 9780691090566
ASIN: 0691090564
Publication Date: March 19, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 10 | | NEXT » |
butterflies of the east coast October 30, 2008
This book is excellent for butterfly identification. It uses great pictures as well as other useful data to aid in butterfly identification.
Perhaps best nature guidebook ever! March 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book (Cech and Tudor) is perhaps the best nature guidebook ever, definitely the best butterfly or insect book. It is a beautifully illustrated guide to the animals and their natural habitats on the east coast, where I live. It covers most butterflies for the central U. S. and eastern Canada as well, and similar coverage for Texas (with the greatest diversity of all) and the west coast would be great if they could do this project as well.
 Butterflies of the East Coast August 9, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very informative book and will help you identify butterflies and learn about their habbitats and habits. Not a pocket or field guide, mostly a coffee table book. Very pretty pictures and again a great learning tool!
Great for detailed info June 27, 2007
Not a book that is easily carried around in the field (though I just heard there is a softcover) this book provides much more in depth information on each species compared to other field guides. Great buy!
Butterfly light, butterfly bright December 1, 2005
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
What part do beauty, grace and harmlessness play for the tough to get going when the going gets tough? According to authors Rick Cech and Guy Tudor, Charles Darwin would say none. For Darwin's survival of the fittest means being as ferocious, speedy and strong as lions and tigers and bears. Yet beautiful, graceful, harmless butterflies have been around much longer than ferocious bears, speedy tigers and strong lions.
As of 1992, 44 fossil records were "officially described" for butterflies. The oldest butterfly fossils date back 48 million years. They were found in Colorado and Texas. They were of metalmarks, nymphalids and swallowtail-like types
But butterflies probably first showed up 60-145 million years ago, along with the first land-growing plants. They make up the largest numbers of plant-eating insects. That's quite a big deal. Only 9 of 29 insect orders have learned to eat plants. Many plants are hard to chew, with thick or waxy outsides. Others are poisonous or friendly to parasitic flies and wasps.
So are butterflies the flighty, intellectual lightweights of the insect world? No, say the authors. In fact, the phrase "bright as a butterfly" means colorful and intelligent. For example, beautifully colored patterns identify Baltimores, Monarchs, Pipevine Swallowtails and Zebra Heliconians as poisonous plant-eaters. Heliconians have a "large mushroom body in their brains thought to be associated with learning." They live at least 6 months, the longest butterfly lifespan. [Mourning cloaks live 11 months. But they sleep through late summer and winter.] They go to the same home every evening, show younger Zebras a regular route of pollen flowers and foodplants, and don't beat against florescent lights.
However, the authors think caterpillars mightn't be so smart. I'm not sure I agree. It's a challenge outrunning cold, disease, drought, fungi, mold, pesticides and storms. It's a bigger challenge keeping out of harm's way from ambush and assassin bugs, ants, birds, lizards, people, robberflies, small mammals and spiders.
It's a still bigger challenge being born and getting fed. For example, the naughty passionvine is a plant butterflies lay eggs on. It makes "false eggs" so the butterfly thinks the space is already taken. Or its nectar glands attract ants that eat buttefly eggs. Or it sends up "decoy tendrils" to drop and break butterfly eggs. Or it sends out sharp hooks to kill by catching, or putting holes in, butterfly caterpillars.
BUTTERFLIES OF THE EAST COAST tells what Atlantic state butterflies look like, what they eat and where they live. The pictures are clear. The information is well organized. I've seen butterfly gardening work: the butterflies and fireflies of childhood are back! How does this book make the world also safe - from pesticides and people - for butterfly children? It comes down to doing what Virginia Tech's advanced master gardeners say: reduce, reuse, recycle. Stop spraying and swatting caterpillars we'll now recognize as butterfly wannabes. Let nature's cycle of life and food chain work. And photograph the caterpillars the authors didn't find.
|
|
|
Powered by Our Keywest | |
