Despite it covering a relatively small geographic area, Costa Rica contains some thirty-five-thousand known species of insects – and the true number is estimated by some to perhaps exceed three-hundred-thousand. Needless to say, compiling the entirety of even the country’s identified and described species would fill volumes, making any comprehensive field guide to the subject not only prohibitively expensive but extremely impractical to tote into the field.
Fortunately, for those seeking a reference guide that is both more affordable as well as portable, Cornell University Press has now published the eminently useful and informative Pocket Guide to the Insects of Costa Rica as the most recent addition to their Zona Tropical Publications / Antlion Media series of their Comstock imprint.
Created by the expert team of Prof. Paul E. Hanson, Kenji Nishida, and Ángel Solĺs, this vividly illustrated new pocket guide presents its subjects in a slightly modified but entirely reasonable arrangement of the standard taxonomy, allowing the authors to provide their readers with the most accessible, representative selection of the most prevalent species one would likely observe in the country while still providing an appropriately proportioned overview to the area’s members of the Class Insecta.
And, of course, as with all such well-written, lavishly illustrated field guides, it is also a superb work for fueling the daydreams of armchair traveling naturalists and others who simply enjoy marveling at the wonders of the natural world.
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