The 8 Best Butterfly ID Guides (2023 reviews)

The guide is a must have accessory for your daily purpose. If you know someone who loves butterflys, this makes a great gift. It features mimicry, warning colors & mimicry associations, camouflage, & poisonous features, etc. It is great to see representative and highlighted species from every family, as well as descriptions of their range, habitat, etc.

These handbooks are perfectly sized for on-the-go and very informative and detailed. The book size is small enough to be useful for a field book. It is scrutinized for accuracy by the Smithsonian institute's scientific staff. The book size and flexible cover permits its use as a field manual.

Why We Like This:

Very nice visual guide to the diversity of lepidoptera
Colors are vivid and great detailed photos to pull from
Very educational with lots of photos

Best For beginner: Mizejewski Butterfly ID Guide

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The mizejewski butterfly id guide's superior materials makes sure that it ages well with use. There are many different food and water sources your garden can offer. The importance of composting, conserving water, and saying no to pesticides is sure to make your habitat thrive. This will ensure you have a beautiful garden as well as food for a wide variety of local wildlife year round via nectar, pollen, berries, seeds, and insects.

The book has easy-to-follow picture guides for projects in the backyard that are inexpensive. It is a wildflower, like the milkweed which feeds monarch butterflies. This book also contains projects for nesting places that you can build and add to your wildlife habitat for roosting birds, bees, and bats. You can use the information provided in these profiles to attract and support them in your very own backyard habitat.

Why We Like This:

Great photos and drawings to illustrate the various topics
You can also certify your yard with nwf as a natural habitat if desired
Covers so much of your yard

Best For Identification: Jim P Brock Butterfly ID Guide

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Not everyone likes to purchase guide for their daily purpose, but the jim p brock butterfly id guide would be an anomoly. It is the perfect book for identifying butterflies and moths. There are more than 2,200 depictions of butterflies in natural conditions, all of them processed digital images based on photographs of live animals. It's smaller than BUTTERFILES THROUGH BINOCULARS, which makes it easier to carry in the field. It also shows male and female images when these differ, and also highlights the field marks to make identification easier.

The pictorial table of contents makes it easy to understand various groupings of butterflies. It's convenient, light-weight, and well illustrated. It includes an "actual size" figure, which is amazingly useful in the field. It is easy to use for field identification for non-entomologists. This is a must have for any butterfly enthusiast.

Why We Like This:

Great pics with identification markings, range, seasons, host plants and so much more
Perfect for the novice who needs good visual (pictures) for identification
Excellent field guide and butterfly identification tool

Best For observer Of Butterflies In Florida: Jaret Daniels Butterfly ID Guide

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate guide. The jaret daniels butterfly id guide is exactly that - it's a simple guide that hits all the right notes. It is easy to distinguish and look up the different butterfly. It tells you what larval plants to include in the garden for each butterfly which is very helpful when putting in another garden. Unlike many, it includes photos of the male and female of the species, photos of larvae and an actual-sized silhouette of the butterfly. The sections (which are divided by the color of the butterfly) make it very easy to find them.

The range map is especially useful along with the color coding. It provides field markings, time of year likely to be seen, and where it can be seen. This is a nice, easy to use book.

Why We Like This:

Good size to carry or leave in vehicle
Concise information, great pictures, easy to use
Good brand reputation

Best For experienced Butterfly enthusiast: Jeffrey Glassberg Butterfly ID Guide

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The jeffrey glassberg butterfly id guide might be a relatively new release, but it's still nothing short of impressive this year, thanks to multiple price cuts and added new features over the past few months. This reference guide has many detailed features that will be a great boon to anyone trying to identify butterflies, from amateurs to experts. It features that need improvement plus has a great quick reference at the back. The photos of each species usually have some type of arrow that points out key characteristics, which is quite helpful.

This is the one for quickly identifying a butterfly. There is a range map for each specie and sub-specie, which are color coded for the number of broods. The swift guide takes a different approach and emphasize different characteristics of butterflies, which is quite helpful. It does take a little persistence to become familiar with, but it is a great guide nonetheless. If you are interested in learning more about butterflies, this is the book for you.

Why We Like This:

An excellent resource for butterfly identification
A must have for butterfly enthusiasts
Very usable, with detail necessary for field identification
Using also for some needle felting projects,great color illustrations

Best For learning flight periods: Thomas J Allen Butterfly ID Guide

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Next on the list, we've got yet another guide that manages to win our hearts. It's the thomas j allen butterfly id guide and it's widely considered as one of the best convenient guide you can buy. This is a visually delightful book filled with 900 photographs of caterpillars. It includes tips on butterfly gardening and an easy-to-read biology of butterflies from eggs to adults, behavior, and diseases. It can stretch itself between two branches so that when birds and squirrels try to pluck it from the branch it gives a curious tone, almost sharing an identical timbre with the mouth harp. It's great fare for a natural history detective.

The section for moth caterpillars is very small, only a few pages, and does no more than identify the moth it will become. It has been kind enough to include a photograph of the adult butterfly with each general species. Maps are presented for each species as well as physical description, habitat, host plants, best times to find them and comments.

Why We Like This:

Exhaustive color photography of each species
Good field encyclopedia for beginner/advanced entomologist
Focuses more on butterflies than moths
Great layout and lots of information and photos on every page

Best For backyard Nature lover: Opler Butterfly ID Guide

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The opler butterfly id guide is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your daily usage. If you really want to see exotic moths and butterflies, a more comprehensive book is for you. This introductory field guide is much, much better than the old little golden guide that beginning lepidoptrists ( butterfly lovers) have relied on in the past. It includes plants the caterpillars of several butterflies they need. It fits nicely into a pants pocket or the side slot of a backpack. This will work great for the grand kids to identify butterflies they find.

This compact little book is easy to take along and has many fine illustrations. It's a wonderful way to look up and identify your butterflies and mother.

Why We Like This:

Perfect book for young and old
Delivers what they promise

Best For Field Identification Of Michigan Butterflies: Jaret Daniels Great Book

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The jaret daniels great book is the best convenient guide on the market today. This little book is a gem for anyone who needs a handy reference guide. It is a good little book for field identification of michigan butterflies. Its dimensions are a portable 4 and 1/4 by 7 inches and compact despite its 376 pages. It also has photographs of the males and females of a particular species.

Each butterfly also has a range map, and a diagram showing both dorsal and ventral views. The pages are glossy and sturdy, so you can take this guide out in the field with you. There is a range map and also a phenogram that shows the population flux throughout the year.

Why We Like This:

Good investment for long term
Delivers what they promise