A Field Guide to Spiders & Scorpions of Texas (Gulf Publishing Field Guide Series)

Rating:
Summary: Finally! A real regional Field Guide for Arachnids!
Review: Dr. Jackman is a well-known entomologist/naturalist at Texas A&M University. This handbook is a well-researched guide to its subject and he enlisted the help of leading authorities (including W. David Sissom for the scorpion section) for information in areas in which he is not familiar. The book lacks in several areas, such as in the Orders Mygalomorphae, Pseudoscorpiones and Solifugae, but this is due in part to a general lack of literature and knowledge in that field for Texas. The full-color photographs, mostly by the author, are excellent, yet small. A great addition to the Texas Monthly Field Guide Series!

Rating:
Summary: Finally! A real regional Field Guide for Arachnids!
Review: Dr. Jackman is a well-known entomologist/naturalist at Texas A&M University. This handbook is a well-researched guide to its subject and he enlisted the help of leading authorities (including W. David Sissom for the scorpion section) for information in areas in which he is not familiar. The book lacks in several areas, such as in the Orders Mygalomorphae, Pseudoscorpiones and Solifugae, but this is due in part to a general lack of literature and knowledge in that field for Texas. The full-color photographs, mostly by the author, are excellent, yet small. A great addition to the Texas Monthly Field Guide Series!

Rating:
Summary: Finally! A real regional Field Guide for Arachnids!
Review: Dr. Jackman is a well-known entomologist/naturalist at Texas A&M University. This handbook is a well-researched guide to its subject and he enlisted the help of leading authorities (including W. David Sissom for the scorpion section) for information in areas in which he is not familiar. The book lacks in several areas, such as in the Orders Mygalomorphae, Pseudoscorpiones and Solifugae, but this is due in part to a general lack of literature and knowledge in that field for Texas. The full-color photographs, mostly by the author, are excellent, yet small. A great addition to the Texas Monthly Field Guide Series!

Rating:
Summary: HOPE IT'S BETTER THAN THE LAST ONE
Review: I keep buying all the Texas Monthly field guide books to snakes, fossils, insects, trees, etc., but the spider guide has been the most disappointing. I am accidentally encountering spiders on a weekly basis that aren't in the guide. Maybe it's because I live on the coast and Home Land Security isn't checking the banana boats closely enough.

Rating:
Summary: good, but incomplete
Review: The only problem i have with this book is that, as a Texan living in Texas, i keep encountering spiders not identified or even remotely mentioned in this book. To top it off, neither can the county agent.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat good pictures and descriptions but not very helpful
Review: This book has some good pictures of a few spiders but in most cases they aren't too great. There is a large amount of information on each type but not what I was looking for just information on location, taxonomy, and biology. I was most interested in finding out the damage that the poison can do to me if I am bit by a certain spider. For instance, the Texas Field guide to snakes by Tennant is split into two sections venomous and nonvenemous and that is the type of organization I was expecting here, but no luck. There is the mention of the broad classes of spiders that can cause you the most harm in the beginning pages but not for each specimen. I believe that it is essential for a field guide to provide this information and that is why i've rated it 3 stars. This book provides more scientific knowledge than anything which is of no use to me personally.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat good pictures and descriptions but not very helpful
Review: This book is less suited as a field guide and more of a biology lesson on overall spider taxonomy. In my opinion a FIELD GUIDE should provide pictures of spiders that you would commonly run into in the FIELD, but this book does not fulfill that expectation. There have been only about one or two spiders i've came across that I have been able to identify by using this field guide out of literally thousands (I spend a lot of time in wooded areas). With the extremely low amount of photos in this guide, any other spiders I am absolutely not able to identify by using this guide. Out of all the Texas Field Guides this is clearly the poorest written one since it probably only has pictures of about 1% of the spiders in the state of Texas. I had originally bought this in order to see which spiders carry the most potent venom other than the obvious black widow & brown recluse, but that is not in here either...just biology. If you are looking for something to help identify spiders in the state of Texas this is about the only choice at the moment, although an average one at best.