UKMoths Description
This second edition of Chris Manley's Photographic guide has been updated with a slew of new features and photographs from the already excellent first edition. Although butterflies have been dropped from this edition (there are plenty of good butterfly guides available), the number of moth species illustrated has increased from around 1500 to well over 2000 species.
In particular, the microlepidoptera are much more comprehensively covered, with over 1200 species, compared to around 500 in the first edition. The moths in the photographs are now all aligned in a similar way, which makes comparison for identification purposes so much easier. Identifying moths can be a tricky process, and a range of different resources is generally required. There's no single best approach, but often photographs of live insects in their natural environment or resting position can help to clinch that identification that doesn't quite fit 100% with photos of pinned specimens or paintings available elsewhere.
With a guide covering so many species, the text for each one is necessarily concise, but this is no bad thing, and keeps the book to a manageable 'field guide' size. As well as a standalone guide it can also be used as a worthy companion to one or more of the other guides guides such as Waring and Townsend or Sterling and Parsons.
The text has been updated with the latest Agassiz, Beavan and Heckford checklist numbers and now has a small distribution map for each species which can help with speedy elimination of certain species when comparing against the photos.
