For Adults

Over the course of 60 years, entomologists Charlie and Lois O’Brien amassed a collection of more than 1 million insects from nearly 70 countries - the largest private collection in the world, with a value of 10 million dollars. But, as Charlie’s battle with Parkinson’s becomes increasingly pronounced, he and Lois, 90, make the difficult decision to give away their drawers full of iridescent weevils and planthoppers. This humorous and poignant film explores the Love of Nature - and the Nature of Love - and what it means to devote oneself completely to both.

Bouchard, Patrice, editor. The Book of Beetles: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred of Nature's Gems.University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Celebrates the beauty and diversity of this marvelous insect. Six hundred significant beetle species are covered, with each entry featuring a distribution map, basic biology, conservation status, and information on cultural and economic significance. Full-color photos show the beetles both at their actual size and enlarged to show details, such as the sextet of spots that distinguish the six-spotted tiger beetle or the jagged ridges of the giant-jawed sawyer beetle. Based in the most up-to-date science and accessibly written, the descriptive text will appeal to researchers and armchair coleopterists alike.

Eaton, Eric R. and Kenn Kaufman.Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007.
The Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America was quickly embraced by amateur entomologists and by professional naturalists and educators for its thorough, accurate, non-technical treatment of this continent's insect fauna. Most people pay scant attention to insects (except perhaps as sources of annoyance), so they are unaware of the dazzling variety of insect life that can be found even in a suburban yard or small city park. Just in the United States and Canada there are close to 90,000 different species of insects, including nearly 11,000 kinds of moths and over 25,000 kinds of beetles, all with their own color patterns, forms, and habits.

Eisner, Thomas. For Love of Insects. Belknap, 2005.
Imagine beetles ejecting defensive sprays as hot as boiling water; female moths holding their mates for ransom; caterpillars disguising themselves as flowers by fastening petals to their bodies; termites emitting a viscous glue to rally fellow soldiers—and you will have entered an insect world once beyond imagining, a world observed and described down to its tiniest astonishing detail by Thomas Eisner. Filled with descriptions of his ingenious experiments and illustrated with photographs unmatched for their combination of scientific content and delicate beauty, Eisner’s book makes readers participants in the grand adventure of discovery on a scale infinitesimally small, and infinitely surprising.

Evans, Dr. Arthur V., National Wildlife Federation, Field Guide to Insects and Spiders and Related Species of North America, National Wildlife Federation Press, 2007 updated.
Enjoy this reference guide to insects and spiders for the beginning entomologist to explore further with detailed information on starting a collection, planting an arthropod garden, keeping insects and spiders in captivity, and learning macro photography techniques. More than 2,000 close-up color photographs by leading nature photographers distinguish each creature, with clear and concise text that accompanies each image describes the range, habitat, life cycle, and behavior.

MacNeal, David. Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessed with Them. St. Martin's Press, 2017.
Insects have been shaping our ecological world and plant life for over 400 million years. In fact, our world is essentially run by bugs—there are 1.4 billion for every human on the planet. Journalist David MacNeal takes us on an off-beat scientific journey that weaves together history, travel, and culture in order to define our relationship with these mini-monsters. MacNeal introduces a cast of bug-lovers—from a woman facilitating tarantula sex and an exterminator nursing bedbugs (on his own blood), to a kingpin of the black market insect trade and a “maggotologist” — who obsess over the crucial role insects play in our everyday lives.

McGavin, George C. Essential Entomology: An Order-by-order Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001.
An up-to-date order-by-order introduction and reference handbook for students of biological sciences in general and entomology in particular. Covers all the important groups on a worldwide basis and explains what makes insects successful. The book is in three sections: first is a straightforward introduction to insect biology; followed by a section on field work; lastly an order-by-order catalog of the insects giving essential facts and details of life-histories, highlighting what makes each order distinct. To make the material as accessible as possible, the information for each order is presented in a standard manner and is written in a straighforward style with as little technical language as possible. Essential terms are fully explained in context with marginal notes. A pictoral guide, specially commissioned by Richard Lewington, is included to aid in the identification of the orders.

White, Richard E. A Field Guide to the Beetles of North America. Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
Over 600 drawings and 65 color paintings portray representative species of the 111 families of North American beetles. Includes information on collecting and preserving beetles.