A photographic guide to the Dragonflies of Singapore
By Tang Hung Bun, Wang Luan Keng and Matti Hamalainen – (2010)
223 pages; gloss art paper, with 358 colour photos, 8 colour illustrations, 10 monochrome illustrations, 1 map & 4 tables
Soft Cover: 14.8cm x 21cm
ISBN: 978-981-08-6155-1
The Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of Singapore.
What an excellent addition this book makes to the literature on the Asian odonates. It nicely covers 124 species recorded to Singapore and its use goes much further afield than this modest sized island nation.
The opening introduction includes notes on ancient odonate fossil history, anatomy, differences between damsels and dragons, life ecology including territoriality and mating, conservation and the importance of creating and conserving all habitats, research and education and the use of both scientific and common names and some of the problems involved in using non-scientific names.
The species are presented in two chapters, first the suborder Zygopetra then the suborder Aniosptera, within which they are grouped in families. Each family has a strong brief description with habitat data and indications of numbers of genera and species globally and known numbers locally.
Each species has its scientific name and author, common name and good descriptive notes and habitat data with measurements in millimeters and both global and local distribution accompanied by at least 1 colour photograph most have 2-3 photos with a few having 5, 6 & 7. The excellent quality of the photos alone in this book makes it worth buying – a couple of them are simply outstanding!
This is a very useful book written in simple terms with minimal scientific language so anyone can read and understand its rather helpful content accompanied by many fantastic colour photographs. It is very useful for Asia generally and additionally useful for cross reference into the PNG and Australasian regions.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books