HarperCollins Complete North American Wildlife : A Photo Field Guide

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful color photography and useful identification tool
Review: This book is lavishly illustrated with full color photographs of several species on the right of each page spread. The facing page gives a brief description of each species including its size, habits, habitat and geographic area of the US in which it is found. I was surprised to find that, in addition to birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, the book also covers fish, plants, and insects. It is great for the amateur naturalist who just wants to find out what kind of lizard or owl he/she saw on a hike. There is not a lot of information on each animal because that would make the book too heavy to lift (it is a field guide after all)! And of course some varieties had to be left out, for instance, with hundreds of kinds of spiders in the US they could not show all of them and kept it down to one page. I was a wee bit disappointed not to find a large caterpillar that I had hoped to identify. Someone who was particularly interested in one type of wildlife might want a second guide to expand on, for instance, butterflies or wildflowers. Overall, it is an attractive and helpful book to have on hand to identify wildlife.