Re: A Pictorial Guide to the British Ephemeroptera
It's a very useful book. I've had a copy for the last month or so.
Firstly it isn't a hard back or even a conventional softback. It's ring bound like a note book, A4 size and in the form of a field guide.
There are 49-51 British species (depending on whether you want to include a couple of old records) and about 30 have excellent pictures associated with them. Some have pictures of the nymph or the male or female dun or the male or female imago. Usually more than one picture is associated with a species, typically there will be one or more nymphs and an adult - either dun or imago.
It is quite understandable that there aren't pictures of all the stages of all as some are quite rare and in other instances they are very similar. Would a fisherman want pictures of all 9 caenis species when the genitalia have to be examined in some cases to tell the difference?
The structure of the book:
Introduction to Ephemeroptera - a general overview
Checklist of the British Ephemeroptera - for the fisherman it may be a bit offputting that there is no index of the common names either in the checklist or the index at the back of the book but there is a common name associated with each on the individual species pages
Then there are broad family identification charts for nymphs and adults
For the adults for example it starts off by asking 2 or 3 tails etc
Thereafter the book is split up into families - for example Baetidae
Each "family" section is split up into
a. A broad identification chart for nymphs
b. A broad identification chart for adults
Then there are detailed descriptions and usually photographs of the species. Normally one species to an opening with pictures on the left page and and Key features, Habitat, emergence charts and distribution for the species on the right page.
For the enquiring fisherman I find it the best of the books, of it's type, that I have by some margin and I thoroughly recommend it.
Malcolm
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