Hoverflies of Northwest Europe: Identification Keys to the Syrphidae

In the UK, *the* hoverfly reference up until recently was Stubbs and Falk. The more recent and excellent WildGuide by Ball and Morris is a field guide with much less thorough keys and it references S&F when the going gets tough. When these two fail me, or I am bashing my head against the 'what does that key mean? wall, this book comes out. It covers a lot of the same ground as S&F however there are obviously a few species listed that would not normally be found in the UK but may be collected as occasional migrants. The keys are structured differently to S&F, some would say they are too difficult they are certainly not for the faint hearted but, as long as you take time to understand them, they are a great help as you have to look at the specimen in a different way, check other features or you simply look at a slightly different drawing and, in a moment of rationality, realise "oh, it's that bit!" The author has done a great job. There are the seemingly mandatory transcription/printing errors but most are now addressed on his web site so are easily remedied. For quick reference buy Ball and Morris. For the more keen, Stubbs and Falk is almost mandatory. For battle hardened "hoverators" in the UK or Europe buy this too, it's worth it.

Nicely laid out and well illustrated key to European Syrphids. An ideal companion to the BENHS Stubbs and Falk volume to double check those tricky and possibly dubious ID's. Not cheap buy but worth the cost if you are looking at Syrphids in earnest - and surely everyone should be?

Sehr guter Bestimmungsschlüssel mit sehr guten Zeichnungen. Genauso stelle ich mir ein Buch über die Bestimmung von Insekten vor.Die meisten Sylphiden Deutschlands können damit bestimmt werden.