Everything you always wanted to know about bugs

B O O K R E V I E W

To order

- To order a copy of "Insects in Kansas," e-mail orderpub@lists.oznet.ksu.edu or write to Kansas State University, Distribution Center, 24 Umberger Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-3402. The cost is $25 plus tax and shipping. You must give a street address rather than a post office box because the book is privately shipped. Include the quantity wanted, a name, billing address, shipping address if different, and a phone number.

By Mike Dixon

Special to The Capital-Journal

If you need a gift idea for a homeowner or gardener, fortune has smiled on both of you in the form of a book, "Insects in Kansas." This work was first published as a report from the Kansas State Board of Agriculture in 1943, and it is now in a beautiful, full-color third (2000) edition.

Although Insects in Kansas is considered to be an authoritative source by experts, it was actually written for more general use. In fact, the editors describe it as "a family text book for daily reference in identifying insects in the garden, the fields, the orchard and the household."

There are times when a scholarly and exhaustive treatment of a subject is not needed, and this is a good case in point. As editors Stephan C. White and Glenn A. Salsbury point out, there may be as many as 20,000 insect species in Kansas; yet in many instances, the difference between one species and another can be detected only by a specialist with a microscope.

Mercifully, the editors have reduced this hoard to a manageable 850 or so photographs and descriptions. Even so, the book seems to this Kansas native and lifelong resident to be most comprehensive. Most folks have little interest in identifying all 13 different kinds of Chrysopidae, but they would like to know if what bit them was the infamous toe biter or perhaps something more terrible sounding, like a blood-sucking conenose.

The editors' enthusiasm for their subject is obvious from the opening pages where they offer an excellent discussion of the nature of insects, their numbers and economic importance. This is followed by an explanation of the Linnaean system of classification, which they use, and a primer on insect physiology and metamorphosis. There is a special section devoted to bee keeping and another that amounts to a handbook on how to gather, mount and keep your own insect collection.

However, the real substance of the book is the large collection of photographs and descriptions. To browse this book is to encounter fantastic, Alice in Wonderland creatures: the weevils with their elephantine snouts, the buffalo treehopper with its horns and hump, the ugly toad bug and the intimidating ambush and assassin bugs.

The editors include the common names of species, and we are treated to some of the most descriptive: the painted lady, the insidious flower bug, the exposed bird dropping moth and the confused flour beetle.

The photography is wonderful, too. Well lit, close-in exposures let us appreciate some of natures most beautiful creatures, like the bella and luna moths, the red velvet mite and the beautiful tiger beetles.

Any insect reference for homeowners and gardeners ought to be comprehensive enough to include those things that I am likely to think of as insects even when I am hopelessly confused. The editors of "Insects in Kansas" have considered this, and they have included sections on things like spiders and sowbugs, which are not insects and are not even related to each other. They have also anticipated that homeowners will have questions about immature insects (larva and pupa), insect eggs and insect galls, and special sections are devoted to each of these.

"Insects in Kansas" is put together the way a real reference book should be, with a big, no nonsense, wire spiral that allows you to flip through the pages over and over again without worrying about breaking the back of a clothbound book. And, it is easy to use; in addition to the standard table of contents, glossary and index, the major orders of insects are organized under separate colors on the fore-edge.

Mike Dixon is a member of the Extension Master Gardeners program in Topeka.

See BUGS, page 19

Bugs: All you wanted to know

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.