Spiders and Their Kin: A Fully Illustrated, Authoritative and Easy-to-Use Guide

J'ai été positivement étonné de découvrir ce petit guide trouvé par hasard sur Amazon. Il est complet vu sa petite taille et les illustrations couleurs sont nombreuses et de bonne qualité

A great little reference for creepy-crawlies.

First, like all of the Golden Guides, this handy little book is written for beginners -- it introduces the science of spiders in such a way that both enthusiastic kids and interested adults are able to comprehend and appreciate the topic. Even so, it's not the lightest of reading. Here's a sample sentence from the book, picked entirely at random: "Pirate spiders are recognized by the row of strong curved setae on the front margins of the lower segments of the first pair of legs." Do a pop quiz on the next 12 people you see, and ask them what "setae" are.What makes Golden Guides appealing to young people is the attractive illustrative style. As an illustrator and photographer, I've found that hand drawn or painted pictures tend to capture the imagination of young people and put them more at ease with text that may be more challenging. The book's illustrations are accurate, if occasionally not as crisp and detailed as one would like for identification purposes.Another characteristic of Golden Guides is that they are most helpful for identifying a limited - although not small - number of common species. If the specimen in question isn't in the book, you may still be able to find clues as to similar species within the group so that you can go on to track down the bug or fossil or flower or spider in question. Every book has a limit, and with nearly 40,000 spider species identified worldwide, I've yet to see a definitive guide to all of them! By my estimate, this book contains about two hundred spiders and an assortment of mites, tics, and scorpions. Oddly enough, it also includes millipedes and centipedes, which are a different group of arthropods altogether.I've been reading Golden Guides since I was a geeky little nature kid. I still have a full set of them, and whenever I give away a copy to a budding naturalist (of any age), it must be replaced. The books have been around for many years, but that doesn't mean the information is dated. The most recent revision for "Spiders and Their Kin," for example, is 2002. Interestingly, early guides are very collectible and at least one website is devoted to collecting them.All of the Golden Guides are well written, beautifully illustrated, and they make excellent family nature guides. Grab a magnifying glass, a few Golden Guides, and Mom, Dad and the kids are ready to hit the trail!

I found an interesting spider up on Mount Rainier a few years ago. The pale blue egg sac caught my attention. I guessed it was in the wolf spider family, roaming around at 1800 meters (6000 feet). I snapped a few photos and continued on to botanize.A few months later, I added an observation on iNaturalist. I know this was a wolf spider (family Lycosidae) but not much more. After a few hours,someone suggested this spider was in genus Pardosa.A few years later, confirmed the ID at the genus level and noted that in Western Washington, only this genus has blue egg sacs. I then asked Rod about how to get to a species level ID. I asked them to recommend a good beginner's book on spiders. They suggested Spiders and Their Kin by Levi et al. I ordered a copy of the book, and when it arrived, I noticed it was a Golden Guide, which I had thought of as a children's book. I was wrong! This book was a perfect introduction. It covers land arthropods other than insects, including spiders, scorpions, harvestmen, mites, centipedes, millipedes, and wood lice. The book starts with the classification, anatomy, and behavior of spiders and their kin.The book's core is an illustrated review by family of spiders, spider relatives, myriapods, and land crustaceans. It has worldwide coverage. The length of each section varies based on the number of species. For example, orbweavers (Araneidae) cover 19 pages, about 12% of the book. This section was helpful, especially a two-page spread on how orbweavers build their webs. The unit on wolf spiders (Lycosidae) helped me understand the behavior of the genus Pardosa.This book will sit beside me while working on my iNaturalist observations of spiders and their relatives. It's a good introduction in 160 pages. One caveat is that this isn't a detailed species identification guide but should be helpful to classify down to the family level.

very visual and informative.