A Field Guide to Butterflies of Australia: Their Life Histories and Larval Host Plants, by Garry Sankowsky and Geoff Walker. Paperback. 400 pages. New Holland Publishers.

A comprehensive guide to the country’s butterflies covering everything from the eye-catching Common Jezabel and Ulysses Butterfly, to the gigantic Cairns Birdwing, to the more cryptic Blues and Skippers. The key features that separate this book from all other butterfly field guides are firstly that all the images are of live butterflies (compared with other guides, which often use specimens), and secondly that there are large numbers of images documenting the different life stages (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, etc), plus images of male and female butterflies where they differ significantly in appearance, and also pictures of host plants, which are often an important factor in locating the butterflies.

On average each of the 350+ butterfly species included have one page of coverage, although some of the larger and more well-known species have up to three pages and some of the smaller species are set at two or three species to a page. There is a distribution map for each species.

The sturdy plastic cover and compact layout make the book ideal for use in the field, while the target readership is anyone with an interest in butterflies.