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How fast do butterflies fly? Does a butterfly have ears? Do they sleep? Does a caterpillar have a skeleton? How does a moth get out of its cocoon? What is the difference between a butterfly and a moth? And just what is a skipper?

Every year, thousands of people visit butterfly conservatories to stand in quiet awe of the simple beauty displayed by these magical creatures. Hazel Davies and Carol A. Butler capture the sense of wonderment and curiosity experienced by adults and children alike in this book about butterflies and their taxonomic cousins, the moths and the skippers. Beautifully illustrated with color and black and white photographs, and drawings by renowned artist William Howe, this book is an essential resource for parents, teachers, students, or anyone who has ever been entranced by these fascinating, fluttering creatures.

Covering everything from their basic biology to their complex behaviors at every stage of life to issues in butterfly conservation, Davies and Butler explore wide-ranging topics and supply a trove of intriguing facts. You'll find tips on how to attract more butterflies to your garden, how to photograph them, and even how to raise them in your own home. Arranged in a question and answer format, the book provides detailed information written in an accessible style that brings to life the science and natural history of these insects. In addition, sidebars throughout the book detail an assortment of butterfly trivia, while extensive appendices direct you to organizations, web sites, and more than 200 indoor and outdoor public exhibits, where you can learn more or connect with other lepidopterophiles (butterfly lovers).

This guide to moths, native plants, and their environmental roles is an indispensable resource for gardeners, conservationists, and nature enthusiasts across the midwestern United States.

Gardening for Moths is the first book to show midwestern gardeners and naturalists why they should attract specific moth species to their properties and how to do it. The book’s stunning color photographs and intriguing facts reveal the fascinating world of these insects, inspiring readers to incorporate moth-loving native plants into their landscapes. The authors emphasize the importance of moths and their caterpillars to ecological food webs, widening the book’s appeal to birders and bat lovers as well.

The book consists of three main sections, beginning with a thorough overview of moths, including their

• population decline and conservation,
• importance in ecosystems,
• relationship with native plants, and
• predators and defenses

In addition, this first section features tips on how to attract and photograph moths at night.

In the next section the authors profile about 140 plant species, providing brief background, natural history, habitat, and growing notes for each along with lists of potential moths the plants may attract.

The third section highlights approximately 150 moth species, ordered taxonomically. These accounts include interesting facts about the life history of both the caterpillar and adult moth of each species. Each account also features a list of the species’ common host plants.

Throughout the volume, inset text boxes provide additional fascinating moth facts. Beautiful photographs (most by the authors) illustrate every included plant and moth species. Select references, online resources, and quick reference tables round out this valuable resource.

This welcome addition to Iowa’s popular series of laminated guides—the twenty-seventh in the series—illustrates fifty-one species commonly found in the Upper Midwest states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

The Saturniid, or Giant Silk moths, are well named. Their large size—up to 6.5 inches for the cecropia moth—and the soft silky browns, greens, and oranges of their wings are unforgettable when they appear at a lighted window at night. Equally well named are the Sphinx or Hawk moths, important pollinators that hover like hummingbirds when nectar-feeding at dusk and even in daylight. The caterpillars of both families can be just as distinctive as the adults, as anyone who has ever come upon a tobacco or a tomato hornworm can attest.

For each species the authors have included common and scientific names, wingspan, and time of flight for the adults at this final stage in their life cycle. Striking photographs of the adult moths and of their larval stages make this guide as beautiful as it is useful.

For all naturalists captivated by the clear window eyespots of a Swallow-tailed Luna moth, the dark eyespots and bright yellow “pupils” of an Io moth, or the extendable proboscis of a White-lined Sphinx moth flitting from one moss rose to another, the photographs and descriptions in Moths in Your Pocket will be an invaluable reference.