A Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants: North America North of Mexico (Peterson Field Guides)

Nice book for knowing which snakes to avoid and which you want in your garden, or camping.

this book is ok, the main problem is that there is unbalanced information, almost to the point of being biased, there are 26 pages on snakes and only 16 pages on insects, including ONLY 5 spiders, and ONLY 1 scorpion!, 2 types of bees!, there are over 70 species of scorpions, 4,000 species of bees, 4,000 known spider species, in the US alone, I know most of those have very similar toxic reactions, or are harmless, and the book is meant to be a field guide so they are limited on the size of the book, BUT this is a huge over sight, if your going to expand the book in one subject you have to expand them all, not to mention the lay out problems where the reader is forced to jump back and forth on the page number to read about the various poisonous plants or to see a colored photo of a plant if the book even has one, and if it does have a picture its a close up which makes causal identification of the plant very, very, hard and some of the plants, just have a drawing of a part of the plant, no picture, this book has information, that is not readily available to the novice, and its indispensable, having said that it needs to be updated, redone, not that the information is out of date, its that the information, needs to be presented, in a easier-to-use format and it needs to be expand, this book should be 4 times this size, or have a larger version, not because nature is scary, or that everything out there can hurt you, but because of just the opposite, knowledge is power and the more you know the less you fear.

I ordered one of these for a young boy who is always asking about the poisonous creepy crawlies we have in another part of the country. This is a wonderful field guide and after receiving the first one in the mail I decided to order another one for another gift. The book is well laid out, easy to use and good for most ages. While there are many drawings (as well as photos) the drawings are done in detail. I asked a friend and he said Peterson guides are always the best so I can trust what I am buying to be educational and accurate. I enjoy that the information is mixed in with the drawings and photos (verses National Audubon Society Field Guides which separates their photos section from their information section (ie National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders). As a layman toward such things, even I am interested in thumbing through a book like this. I think anyone would find it interesting and probably also a useful tool for those "in the know" wanting to learn more.

WARNING: There aren't color photos for everything (at least in this edition). Maybe there is in a newer version or the paperback, but the one advertised here only has color photos for some things. These photos aren't bad, but for something like this, I would go with color photos of EVERY thing that's in the book & from different angles on each specific thing (ex: the top, side, and underneath of a mushroom so you can see the different characteristics that are being referenced).I'm a bit angry about this, since this is meant to be the field guide you go to for identification of poisonous things (and if you know what's poisonous, you know what to stay away from & can at least take a swipe at what's edible or medicinal). It's not useless, but it's not enough in my opinion.

I go fishing and camping a lot. I'm in the wilderness when I'm not behind my desk studying. My friends and I went one time and when we came back one of my friends had a huge rash on his chest. No one knew why. I figured it must have been the plants or some type of bug. Turns out it was poison oak. It was for this reason I purchased this book. There have been countless plants we've come across since then that were poisonous and this time we actually knew about them. If you don't know your bugs and plants this is a must have.

I live in Georgia where everything bites or makes you itch :) This is a life saver. Take that poison ivy!

Refer to this often for personal, everyday usage and as a reference source for my writing. This volume helped me to identify a snake found in my basement & outside the house, several insects, and a spider. At this rate, this book should become one of my more frequently referenced favorites.

I purchased this guide for my son and he has already put it to good use identifing several plants and insects around our property. This book contains drawn illustrations as well as color photos. It also contains a break down with illustations of the different parts of various plants. I found this to be a very educational and handy book that would be good for anyone over about 8 years of age.

Note that this book primarily covers creatures of North America and North of Mexico (not UK). It is softback with 244 pages. An interesting read with a few surprises thrown in, the text covers quite a lot of detail including animal details, dangerous effects and treatment/antivenin. Most images are greyscale drawings however there are some colour plates too. When trying to identify some species however, I did have to refer to other books as the drawings didn't give me enough confidence for positive identification. Do not let this put you off however as it is a valuable reference source, especially if you're in the USA region.

A good book, with plenty of illustrations, and quite a few colour photos of poisonous plants, and venomous animals! Thanks!

excellent book need to know your plants

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Handy book to have.