I would recommend "The Family Butterfly Book" by Rick Mikula. It covers attracting butterflies with both nectar and host plants, raising and breeding BFs, a few projects to do (mainly making your own cages for adults and larva), and also 40 native US BF species.
Another good book is "The Life Cycles of Butterflies" by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards. It is useful and unusual in that it has photos of all stages of the BFs it covers, including early and late instar cats. It also has fairly good range maps and the life cycle seasons for the BFs it covers.
-Jmcat

There are 15 books on the topic in the FAQs. There are no descriptions, but it might give you a few more titles to research.

Hi Sandy -

First you need to decide what kind of books you need or are looking for. Butterfly gardening, a starter field guide, advanced identification and life history, family - genus - species specific, region specific, technical, etc, or just a book of pretty pictures. Would suggest a few, but it's pretty hard to recommend without knowing what type of books you want or need.

I have something over 100 hardbound books and at least twice as many papers written about the worlds Lepidoptera. Please realize that not all lep books are created equal... some are truly excellent works within their scope and others are not worth the price of admission. Add that some of the best lep books ever written are long out of print.

A couple of good lep book sources are Bio Quip Products and the NHBS Natural History Catalog. Both have fairly good contents descriptions for the books to help you decide, and both can be found on-line.

HTH,

L.

I've got at least 100 books dealing with butterflies, moths and caterpillars. Most of which I looked over a couple of times and pick up on rare occasions.

The book by Judy Burris mentioned above is great for getting started. Excellent photos from egg to butterfly as well as good nectar and larval hosts.

I'm a photo-head. Must have a book with good photos for quick identification. They can write paragraphs describing the size, color, shape and markings of a butterfly or moth but a picture paints a thousand words!

I always carry my Kaufman Focus Guide: Butterflies of North America with me...have several copies, one at work, in my car, in my camera bag, have given copies to friends etc. It covers pretty much all the butterflies you will find in any given state. Digitally enhanced photos followed up by butterfly and plant info.

I also like Marc Minno's book Floriday Butterfly Caterpillars and their host plants as well as Brock, Allen and Glassberg's book Caterpillars in the Field and Garden.

Guess if there is a book for butterflies specific to your state that would help too. I know I have several for Texas and the south central area...but still never leave home without my Kaufman Focus Guide.

~ Cat

Ditto Cat and Ladobe...I can't even tell you how many books I have (in my house, classroom, trunk and backseat of my car, husband's van...) I carry them everywhere! I haven't quite decided which book is my absolute fave. I do agree that Bio Quip is a great place to do a spot of searching, though. Look at the titles in the FAQ then check them out on Bio Quip's website.

Thanks everyone who has responded.

I have huge gardens that have lots of BF attracting plants, have good water sources, etc. established in the yard. Will continue to plant beneficial plants too. We have the usual butterflies we can id but have been seeing some new to us this year so am looking first for a book or two for identification purposes. I am a visual person, so good pics are needed with ID info. Secondly a books that will help us learn about raising and breeding BFs.

I will look into the books recommended but please continue to make recommendations.

Thanks again!
Sandy

Sandy - is Sandy becoming as common a name here as Sherry? :) - my favorite field guide is the one by Brock and Kaufman. The illustrations are photographs that have been digitally altered with the keys to IDing the butterflies always visable, which isn't always the case with photographs - the authors also tell what the keys are, that is, what separates that butterfly from others much like it.
I like the Burris and Richards book for its life cycle pictures - they're wonderful, and knowing what the individual caterpillars/eggs look like is important if you want to raise them.
There aren't any books that I know of that give comprehensive instructions about how to raise caterpillars. I use reptarian/butterfly cages with water picks and/or plastic leftovers containers to anchor the host plant material, but there are many different methods of raising cats - CalSherry/todogmom uses small, individual containers and doesn't put the host plant material in water - she's been VERY successful with her method. The best way to find out about raising caterpillars is right here!
MissSherry

With all the digital imagery posted on this forum, we have enough to develop an image section on our FAQs and then some, probably. There is a search feature on the site, so you can research plant names, butterfly names, etc. that can help you if you're focusing on a specific butterfly or plant.

Other ID websites include Bug Guide and What's That Bug (both are great websites to visit). Moth Photographers has great photos of eggs, larvae, host plants, and adult moths, if you lean that way.

I'm kind of getting away from recommending the Butterfly and Moth website sponsored by the University of Montana (?) anymore, because they have little information that is current, and their photos are not the best on the web anymore. But, if you want their list of butterflies and information (if available), you might want to try it out at butterfliesandmoths.org.

Sometimes you can Google "Minnesota Butterflies" and get a lot of specific information on what butterflies use as host plants and nectar plants in that state from people who have observed and/or raised butterflies. I read lots of people's blogs on the net about certain butterflies because you can glean little bits of info that you don't get from books, based on that person's experience.

That said, you started with a really good book in the Binoculars series by Glassberg. I have that, too. I bought mine at Abe Books and got it as a used book, but for $7 instead of $25 or whatever the new book price was. It's in great condition.

Judy and Wayne's book is outstanding if you want to see the entire life cycle of specific butterflies. They painstakingly produced this book through raising butterflies from egg to adult butterfly. It is great for learning to ID eggs and early instar cats. I still have a hard time knowing what early instar cats of many species look like, because they vary substantially from the later instars. If you look at a 1st instar and a 5th instar for comparison, often you wouldn't realize it's the same species.

My next purchase is going to be Caterpillars of the Eastern Forests (David Wagner). There may be butterfly books available specifically addressing Minnesota butterflies as well. I have one for "Butterflies of Kansas, Oklahoma, and North Texas" that I use frequently. However, it does not have images of the caterpillar, egg, pupae, anything like that. So, it's hard to rely on just one book to encompass everything one wants or needs in regard to butterflies.

Yes - this forum is a great source, too!

Welcome and hope you'll join in the fun!

Susan

I agree, Susan. The binocular series is good for BFs though it is completely lacking on cats.
MissSherry - I think you might be right about Sandy! The first book I mentioned - The Family Butterfly Book - has pretty good info on raising cats, I believe in both small and large numbers.
-Jmcat

I'll tell ya, Kaufman's has one thing that I wish others would learn from: inline pictures on the same page as the text.

What kind of a "field guide" is it if I'm flipping back and forth between description on p. 54 and plates on p. 165 and trying my best to keep the actual butterfly in view as it flits about?!!

Bah, humbug!
Jeff

Jeff, I know exactly what you mean, and that can be frustrating. That's one reason I like Judy's book so much. I think it's a great book for beginners and experienced butterfly gardeners alike.

I'm hoping to see her supplement to the original book that will include more butterfly species. She has a website, too, with some that are supplementary to her book, and if you google "Judy Burris" you'll get a link to her website. She even has included a few moths, too.

Susan

susanlynne -

I agree, there are lots of very good pictures and some pioneering life history data posted on this forum that would be a great aide to a beginner if it all was assembled into the FAQ somehow. However, for any search engine to work with it the plant and bug names used in the FAQ would have to standardized. There are lots of regional common names and abbreviations used here, but few folks here use taxonomic correctly. Taxonomy does change rarely, but its still the best way to label a bug/plant so the majority of people would be on the same page (and be able to cross reference on the Internet more easily). Especially true if subspecies, forms or abberations were included.

How well I remember back when I first found this forum spending days trying to figure out what the heck a RSP or SBST was. LOL

I see three people in this thread have recommended the "Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America."

On a whim, I started looking for butterfly/moth books that I didn't own. The Kaufman book came up. Some searching showed that for some reason, this book can be had CHEAP. I ended up buying two off eBay and spent $11.80 w/shipping. Got them today and they are in great shape. Don't know why the book is at closeout prices but I figured I'd alert anyone here who wants a copy.

eBay search is weird these days (which is one reason sellers are unhappy). There are a bunch of these books out there but I couldn't find any way of bringing them all up at once. Searching the IBN-10 code "0618768262" brings up the cheapest one I could find ($2.14 w/$3.99 shipping). When I bought mine on the 21st, there were a bunch under $3 but they must have been snapped up. Amazon currently has 4 sellers under $3 w/$3.99 shipping.

KC