Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East (Princeton Field Guides, 80)

Claimers and Dis-claimers: I've only spent a couple hours with this book and they were at my desk. Though I had specimens available they were not fresh specimens and I haven't taken this into the field yet (this is January after all). Though I've worked as a lackey on a couple of odonate projects, I'm an insect generalist not an odonate specialist.This is definitely the best available comprehensive odonate guide for eastern North America. Advantages over Dunkle's Dragonflies Through Binocs include: the damselflies (for a start), plus MUCH better photos, detail photos and line drawings where helpful to illustrate key features, more species-to-species comparisons in both photos, text, and line art to help with difficult IDs, and more accessible and useful natural historical information on each species, often very helpful in determining species.I can't make up my mind about the page layout. On the one hand, the species are consistently laid out, each with the same sections: Description, Identification, Natural History, Habitat, Flight Season, and Distribution. Each species account starts with a bar color-coded to the genus to draw your eye to the name (common name first, then scientific name in italics followed by measurements in mm). Also a range map and most have both male and female illustrated with large, bright, sharp, well oriented photos. The repetitive structure makes it relatively easy to jump around comparing the same information on each of two or more species that you're contemplating for an ID. On the other hand, putting so much information and so many large pictures into the species accounts means that there are rarely more than two species on any one two-page spread and add in the color bar and short paragraph that heads each genus section and it can be a little hard to sense where you are or build up a head of speed if you're thumbing around. Sometimes the photo for a species is the next page over from the identification text, which is too bad. Because Lam, in his Damselflies of the Northeast, used paintings, he was able to put each species into identical poses, so when you flip through species, you know you're moving from one to another every time you see another perpendicular display of abdomen and wing. To be fair, it is important for dragonflies to communicate their perching posture so you wouldn't want to digitally wrench the photos around ala Kaufman's butterfly book just for the sake of order. Also, the designers made a choice to keep the book pocket sized (though at 30 mm thick that's your call) but still retain rich species accounts and that just means you have to suck it up on the page layout. Also, the designer clearly tried hard to come up with cues and tricks to help you stay oriented (using color bars for instance). Finally, if I used the book enough to memorize which colors went with which genera, I'd probably feel less disoriented.I do miss the little lines and arrows that are often used in field guides to point out important features. If you are reading the description and identification text and jumping back and forth to the picture (sometimes across pages) I (at least) have to use a lot of brain power to process the technical words into visual search images then flip to the picture, find the right location, and finally see what the author was talking about. I'm not saying that with more time it wouldn't go away, I'm just throwing it out there as an observation.Speaking of the text, for each species I'd say the text is pretty great throughout, great descriptions and very interesting natural historical remarks. Many of the remarks about behavior were very useful, things like if you see a darner doing X, it is probably such and such a species. I did find the content of the description, identification, natural history, and habitat sections a little confused or perhaps duplicative. The descriptions are sometimes too general, or perhaps just in the wrong place. For instance in the Enallagma, the hard core identification needs to be done with language about abdominal segments and humeral stripes, and all that's in there, to be sure, but many species accounts also include something like, predominantly black above and blue below, with more blue distally. I'd guess the author wanted to encourage beginners by giving them a general character, which is fine, but there's already an Enallagma genus intro paragraph and when the species accounts are already pushing onto two pages maybe tougher editing could have helped.I have one knock about the illustrations. The species accounts regularly mention regional variations, which is good, but they don't always give you detailed help in recognizing them. Now that's fine for a general guide to an area as large as eastern North America, but then it's too bad that so many of the illustrations are western specimens. Many species are illustrated with Arizona specimens and specimens from parts of Texas not in the guide's ostensible coverage area. You have to give Paulson some latitude so he can give us the best available illustrations of the species, but with the attention to regional variability in the text, it does leave one a little uneasy.The range maps are decent sized and readible, but they're not detailed enough to help distinguish regional variability. The author does say in the intro that range maps are by their nature generalizations and the short but well chosen biography does refer readers to regional guides where more details would be available.I really liked the introductory section. It is liberally illustrated with the same high level of quality as the rest of the book and the anatomical illustrations are just great. I especially like the section on suggestions for future research. It's great to see such an accomplished naturalist be so encouraging of beginners and non-professionals.Summary: This is a great book and a long overdue replacement for Dunkle. There are a few things I didn't particularly like in my first appraisal, most notably all the Texas photos. However, I recognize each is a decision the author and designer made for good reasons and allow that I might change my mind as I worked with the book. I describe them here so you get a better picture of the book and can make up your own mind if it would work for you. I'm not sure if I were headed out the door to do some ode'ing I'd grab this book over the Massachusetts field guide (Nikula, et al. 2nd ed. 2007) and Lam's Damselflies, but we're lucky here to have such good regional guides and both appear in the bibliography (though I see that it doesn't cite the improved 2nd ed of Nikula). If I were traveling beyond my native coastal southern New England and didn't know the local scene, or were going to an area without a good regional guide, I'd definitely grab Paulson's new book and it is probably all I'd need.

One of the best field guides I own. This is THE definitive guide to dragonflies in the Eastern U.S. Painstakingly concise and almost excruciatingly detailed. You will not want for more information than what is already given. All the pictures are great, and the range maps are solid. This is a guide that every entomology enthusiast should own.

Was given as a gift and she loves it.

As a veteran birder with an interest in mammals and insects, I've thumbed through hundreds of field guides. The point of a field guide is to enable you to quickly identify an organism in the field, and every field guide I've seen does this by illustrating at least four (on average and preferably more) organisms on a two page spread. This allows the user to readily compare different organisms and scan for what he has seen. Unfortunately, this book doesn't meet that simple standard. At most, and this is relatively infrequent, two complete species accounts are visible on a two page spread, and frequently the illustration and textual description are on different pages because the layout is completely linear – presenting from top to bottom of page the species name and the description and other information, and then a photograph, and then another species name and description, and photograph, etc. This layout makes the book awkward to use as a quick field reference, and also difficult for beginners. (I've added a photo because, unfortunately, the “look inside” feature of this book doesn't display any of the pages from the main body, so you can't see this problem for yourself prior to buying. The lack of pages from the principal text is a problem I've seen with the “look inside” feature for many field guides on Amazon.) The book is also rather heavy for use in the field.With those warnings, I'll just second the praise in other reviews for the quality and depth of the information which makes this an excellent reference.

Always my recommendation, if you are only going to buy only one field guide to dragonflies and damselflies, this should be it. If residing in the West, there is also a Western guide by the same author which is equally as well done.

This is a very detailed and well illustrated guide. It has all the dragonflies found in its covered area. You may need a specimen in hand to make a final identification.Having made that warning, I can only add that this is the sort of guide you will need for a serious study. I like to know what I am seeing and photographing, and often spend much more time on studying my subject than in merely taking pictures: and this is what one needs for a strong interest. Not everyone is that determined! Interests vary. This guide is for the serious specialist or amateur.As usual for the Princeton Field Guides series, the work is of very high quality in every respect.

Like it's partner volume covering the west of the US, this is an excellently produced reference work with comprehensive contents and good quality photographs. Again, a little heavy so perhaps not what I'd call a field guide, as such. Mostly, though, I suspect that, like me, people tend to work from digital photographs back ast home base, these days. I'd personally prefer high quality drawings, such as those of the incredible Richard Lewington, instead of photographs for identification but hopefully I'll get a chance to try this approach in anger one day.

My only problem with this book was, I would have preferred some kind of colour-coding to help identification. Obviously that is problematic as many males are totally different coloured from females. I don't know a solution to this problem and am merely pointing it out. The book is great once you have found the appropriate insect.Wish we'd had this book years ago.

If your knowledge of dragonflies needs to be broadened then look no further than this book. Well written, even with some humour, this book contains literally everything you will ever need to know about dragonflies and damselflies.

This is an excellent comprehensive guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of the eastern United States and Canada. All species are illustrated with clear photos of both males and females and the text includes precise descriptions. As a pro nature photographer, I find this book invaluable in identifying the many insects I photograph and I am able to identify almost every photograph. I strongly recommend this book for naturalists, photographers and anyone interested in insects.

The spartan cover art of this book belies a very complete and clear data collection on all the species of the eastern US and Canada, including very detailed maps, color photographs of both sexes and their immature or aged forms and geographical variants for most species. Much behavioral information is also available, a pleasant surprise that can be very helpful in the field. The book also contain a lot of general knowledge on odonates about their life cycles, general biology, anatomy and related identification criteria. Haven't read a field guide of this quality in quite a while!