Dragonflies and damselflies of Middle America and the Caribbean
By Carlos Esquivel – (2006)
319 pages; matt art paper, with 171 colour photographs, 5 monochrome illustrated plates & 1 table.
Soft Cover: 22.8cm x 15cm
ISBN: 9968-927-13-9
Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), Santo Domingo Costa Rica
Language Bilingual: English/Spanish
Tropical America has always been of great interest to me with its amazing diversity and variety of fauna and flora, in particular its wild orchids, birds and odonates. The area covered in this book from Mexico to Panama is referred to as Mesoamerica. In this area, at least 500 species of odonate occur with some 300 of those found just in Costa Rica. With the area still (at the time) greatly under studied this book is the first to provide a taster of the 16 families of odonate known to occur in this region with 65 of the regions species covered in detail.
Each family has good notes and observations which include; a description of key characteristics, morphology, habitat, behavior, reproduction, larvae, diversity and distribution with short descriptions of the genera and the distributional notes and indications of species numbers have an emphasis on this region. The species illustrated have their scientific name, average length measurements with a morphological description, habitat, behavior and distribution both local and global. These are enhanced by some very nice photos of males and females and included are some very interesting species such as Neoneura amelia, Archilestes grandis, Erpetogomphus eutainia and one of the largest of all odonates Megaloprespus caerulatus. Of further interest, this author is possibly the first modern worker/writer to promote Orthemis discolor and O. ferruginea as being distinct separate entities.
This is a nice little book which enticingly makes known to us a broad perspective of the colourful and often unique odonates of the region, leaving the bibliophile and odonate enthusiast wanting to see and read more. Due to the geographic location of Central or “Mesoamerica”, this book is very useful to anyone with an interest in the odonates of the Americas whether it be the northern or southern continents and especially of course to Central America itself.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books