Butterflies of Europe: Identifying Butterflies is Easy - New Field Guide and Key [Paperback]

It really is an addition to the existing guides and one that goes much further than the others.

a must for anyone interested in identifying butterflies.

At least a field guide which allows to identify with confidence all the butterflies flying in Europe.This book is basically a subdivided determination key. The beginner can follow it step by step untill he gets the name of the butterfly, the keen entomologist can directly go to the relevant genus or species. There are about 1300 colour photos of living butterflies with useful lines pointing to distinguishing features. For each species the text, photos and distribution map are presented together. The distribution maps are precised and updated, with detailed maps for local species. The author's aim is to enable the identification of all species in the field without killing them, and there are genitalia drawings for the more difficult species with a method to check them without killing. This pocket field guide (13 x 19 cm, 352 pages, 500 grams, softcover) has everything to become the ideal companion of your travels and excursions.

This guide has been especially designed to be used in the field: small size and weight, large print easy to read, colour photos of living butterflies with arrows pointing to distinguishing features.

I hope this book will help you to identify the butterflies alive. My 12-years old son, who had never been interested in nature before, found the identification keys were a nice game. He managed to sort out alone about 150 species last summer, with only very few mistakes. At the beginning it is often useful to catch the butterfly and to keep it for a while in a small transparent box for a close examination. Once you have carefully observed and identified several species of the same group (blues, fritillaries, ringlets for example) you have progressively learnt where to look at. After a couple of weeks, you will identify an increasing number of butterflies without catching them, just looking at them when they sit or feed on the flowers.

Tristan Lafranchis, born in 1960, has been interested in butterflies since he was a child. After working as a conservation advisor and entomologist in France, he now lives in Greece where he leads nature tours. He has also written Les papillons de France, Belgique et Luxembourg, 2000.