This comprehensive guide to the butterflies of Britain, Europe and North Africa describes and illustrates all 440 species, depicting both males and females and - where there is significant variation - subspecies. Distribution maps accompany every widespread species.

This photographic guide to butterflies represents a completely new approach to field guides. It is aimed at those who wish to find and identify butterflies encountered in the field quickly and easily while promoting their conservation. Full colour throughout the book allows the text toarranged alongside the illustrations of the butterflies and a map to show the distribution of the butterflies in Europe. The text itself deliberately focuses on features that complement the photographs and facilitate identification. All the photographs of living butterflies photographed in thepositions in which they will be found in nature - if a butterfly only perches with its wings outspread, that is how it appears in the book; if a butterfly may perch either with its wings spread or folded, both views are shown. Stress is laid on the importance of exploiting all available informationfor locating and identifying butterflies - if two butterfly species look so similar that they cannot be identified without handling or dissection, the two species are distinguished by behavioural, geographical, or seasonal features in the text. This maximises the number of photographs available toillustrate different positions, regional variations, and sex differences. This is the only guide that covers the whole of Europe, including the Canaries, Azores, Madeira, and all the Aegean islands. It contains numerous unique photographs of species, subspecies, and forms and information abouttheir biology that has never been published before. By providing information about the ecology and conservation status of the butterflies, readers will be encouraged to observe carefully and understand the importance of protecting habitats for the sake f the butterflies, and other organisms, thatlive within them.

An authoritative photographic guide to the butterflies of Europe. Packed with beautiful photography and thoroughly updated throughout, this is the definitive guide to all 472 species of European butterflies with additional information on another 64 species found in North Africa and south and west Turkey. Detailed text and clear photographs – including views of both the upperwing and underwing where possible – allow identification of adult butterflies in the field. There is also useful information on their relative size, similar species, habitat, lifestyle and larval host plants, accompanied by accurate range maps which have been updated for this new edition. The result of collaboration between many European butterfly experts and photographers, and compiled by a Finnish team, this thoroughly updated and comprehensive guide represents the last word in butterfly identification.

This is the most comprehensive field guide to the butterflies of Europe. The magnificent color illustrations and succinct entries cover all 440 species across, and sometimes beyond, the continent--from Lapland to North Africa, from the British Isles to Portugal to Greece, from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus. Completely up-to-date, the book includes dozens of species absent in earlier guides and covers the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira, and the Aegean Islands, home to several butterflies found nowhere else in Europe. The entries cover taxonomic nomenclature, range, distribution, description, flight period, variation, habitat, life history--including, importantly, larval host plants--and behavior. The 104 color plates feature over 2,000 illustrations, including both genders of each species and lateral views. Distribution maps accompany nearly all entries. In this journey to the haunts of the Old World's most kaleidoscopic creatures we encounter: Swallowtails and Festoons, Orange Tips, Hairstreaks and Blues, Emperors and Tortoiseshells, Fritillaries, Ringlets, Skippers, and many other delicately winged delights. All who find butterflies beautiful will treasure this authoritative guide. Whether already afield or still at home dreaming of that trip to Europe, they will feel what the great literary lepidopterist, Vladimir Nabokov, did as a schoolboy in Russia, when, as he once recounted, he so yearned to identify one of those "delicate little creatures that cling in the daytime to speckled surfaces, with which their flat wings and turned-up abdomens blend." Comprehensive field guide to the 440 butterflies found in Europe Each species fully illustrated with paintings of the male, female, and, where appropriate, all major forms Over 2,000 color illustrations and more than 400 distribution maps--one for every widespread species Text covering taxonomic nomenclature, distribution, flight period, variation, habitat, behavior, life cycle, food plants, and conservation All information researched from original sources

'A much-needed guide – you can't truly understand a moth or a butterfly without first getting to know the caterpillar.' – Nick Baker This beautifully illustrated field guide covers caterpillars of the moth and butterfly species that are most likely to be encountered in the British Isles. The comprehensive introduction covers how to study caterpillars and provides a window into their diverse natural histories, while the species accounts cover status, field characters, similar species, habitat, foodplant and field notes, and are accompanied with up-to-date distribution maps.

Third edition of the most comprehensive and authoritative guide to the larger moths of Great Britain and Ireland. This latest edition of the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland has been fully revised, updated and restructured, bringing it in line with the latest thinking in taxonomy. Moths are illustrated in their natural resting postures, and there are also paintings of different forms, underwings and other details to help with identification. New descriptions and illustrations have been included for species that have been newly recorded in Britain and Ireland since the last edition of the guide was published. The text descriptions of all other species – covering field characters and similar species, flight season, life cycle, larval foodplants, and habitat – have been revised and updated where necessary, and particular attention has been paid to updating the distribution information, which is now supported by maps. The revised general introduction explains how the methods of identifying and recording moths have evolved over recent years with the advent of new technologies and as a result of data analysis.