American Beetles, Volume II: Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea

The serious amateur or professional North American coleopterist will find this text an indispensable addition to their library. As the title proclaims, it covers only those beetles found in the nearctic ecozone north of Mexico, and won't be much help with beetles found elsewhere.Vol. II includes a dichotomous key to all N.A. beetles which is not provided in Vol. I. It provides details on four infraorders of the suborder Polyphaga: (1) Scarabaeiformia [Scarab beetles (one superfamily of 12 families], (2) Elateriformia [Buprestids and click beetles (in five superfamilies of 30 families)], (3) Bostrichiformia [Anobiids, bostrichids, and dermestids, in two superfamilies of six families], and (4) Cucujiformia [the chrysomelids, including the long-horned beetles; plus the snout beetles, weevils, and the majority of our other plant-eaters, in six superfamilies of 61 families].What makes this and its sister volume so valuable is the level of detail. Each family exposition includes hand-drawn diagrams, drawings of anatomical characters, and a lengthy bibliography. Most familial descriptions include notes on habits and habitats, and taxonomical tidbits. It is obvious, too, that efforts have been made to keep the jargon as simple as possible, making this a good introductory text.Though more expensive than the average book, it is well worth the cost for those engaged in more than surface analyses of beetle biology. The key at the back of the book can be a challenge to neophytes, but --- then --- so are most dichotomous keys. It seems doubtful the key could be simplified without losing its essential value.

The media could not be loaded.  The text was useful for keying species, and has been addressed in other reviews in good detail. However, the binding is downright awful. It's a soft-spine, soft-cover text. When just paging through the book, any number of pages just falls out, some are glued in, but if I had to guess, it was because of irregularly applied glue to the binding.I reordered this book 3 times and all had the same problem. Amazon customer service was pretty awful in resolving this issue and kept offering to send new texts but all 3 had the exact same problem. Ended up keeping one and paying for essentially a partially bound manuscript. Buyer beware.

This book and its first volume are very useful both for amateurs interested in beetles, or for coleopterologist that seek a general handbook on beetles families.Each chapter corresponds to a family, and have been written by specialist on that specific group.The drawings could be better in some cases, but in general is a very helpful and user-friendly book on Coleoptera.

It's awesome. The standard. Wish it dug a little deeper, but it's incredible.

This book, in addition to the first volume, is an outstanding reference for coleopterists and general entomologists. It provides one of the most accurate keys for identification of families, and it comes with very well pics/draws to help the reader to identify the sp(p).I highly recommend this book (PLUS volume I).

This bok provides an antomical key to identification of insect species. t is fun learning what is meant by the vocabulary! then research your species. For an inteelcetual but practical way to reach closer to an insect species, just beware that not all bugs are beetles.

Amazon really needs a kindle preview...........no point in spending 200 dollars to find the kindle one has no drawings,......crucial to this one

This book is simply a necessity if you really want to get serious about studying beetles. My only complaint about this book is that the binding is cheap. All families are covered and each family has an extensive bibliography. This helps you find the species level keys that you need to identify your beetles. This book and its companion volume bring together an amazing amount of data. KEY TO FAMILIES IS IN THIS VOLUME...not volume I