Beetles (Collins New Naturalist Library) by Richard Jones - Signed Edition

Beetles (Collins New Naturalist Library) by Richard Jones - Signed Edition

Hand Signed by Richard Jones to the Title Page
Hardback Edition - No. 136 in the series
New & Unread - Published 2018

‘A truly excellent account’ British Wildlife

Beetles are arguably the most diverse organisms in the world, with nearly half a million beetle species described and catalogued in our museums, more than any other type of living thing.

This astonishing species diversity is matched by a similar diversity in shape, form, size, life history, ecology, physiology and behaviour. Beetles occur everywhere, and do everything. And yet they form a clearly discrete insect group, typically characterised by their attractively compact form, with flight wings folded neatly under smooth hard wing-cases. Almost anyone could recognise a beetle, indeed many are intimately associated with human society. Groups like ladybirds are familiar to us from a very young age. Large stag beetles and handsome chafers are celebrated for their imposing size and bright colours. The sacred scarabs of the ancient Egyptians were given iconic, if not god-like, status and even though the exact religious meanings may be fading after three millennia, their bewitching jewellery and monumental statuary inspire us still.

Despite this ancient and easy familiarity with beetles, the Coleoptera remains tainted by the notion that it is a ‘difficult’ group of insects. The traditional routes into studying British natural history, through birdwatching, butterfly-collecting and pressing wild flowers, now extend to studying dragonflies, bumblebees, grasshoppers, moths, hoverflies and even shieldbugs. These are on the verge of becoming popular groups, but beetles remain the preserve of the expert, or so it seems. So many British beetles are easy to find and easy to identify by the non-expert, but that bewildering background diversity, and the daunting numbers of species in the Coleoptera as a whole, have been enough to dissuade many a potential coleopterist from grasping the nettle and getting stuck in.

Richard Jones’ groundbreaking New Naturalist volume on beetles encourages those enthusiasts who would otherwise be put off by the, to date, rather technical literature that has dominated the field, providing a comprehensive natural history of this fascinating and beautiful group of insects.

About the Author: Richard Jones is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a past president of the British Entomological Society and author of several books on insects, wildlife and gardening. He also contributes articles on insects and the environment to several high-profile newspapers and magazines (including the Guardian, BBC Wildlife and Gardener's World Magazine), and appears regularly on radio and television.

About the Books: Collins New Naturalist series is the longest-running and arguably the most influential natural history series in the world with over 100 volumes published in over 60 years. Key contributors include Fraser Darling, Max Nicholson, Sir Alistair Hardy, W.G.Hoskins, Miriam Rothschild, Richard Fitter, Guy Mountfort and Niko Tinbergen making them a veritable Encylopaedia Britannica of British natural history in its broadest sense.

The New Naturalist books are a series published by Collins in the United Kingdom, on a variety of natural history topics relevant to the British Isles. The aim of the series at the start was: “To interest the general reader in the wild life of Britain by recapturing the inquiring spirit of the old naturalists.” In the editors’ preface to a 1952 monograph they write “An object of the New Naturalist series is the recognition of the many-sidedness of British natural history, and the encouragement of unusual and original developments of its forgotten or neglected facets.”

The first to appear was E.B. Ford’s Butterflies in 1945. The authors of this series are usually eminent experts, often professional scientists. This gives the series authority, and many are or have been authoritative introductory textbooks on a subject for some years. The books are written in scientific style, but are intended to be readable by the non-specialist, and are an early example of popular science in the media. The books of the series have had considerable influence on many students who later became professional biologists, such as W.D. Hamilton and Mike Majerus. The latter was inspired by Ford’s Butterflies and Moths and later added two of his own volumes to the series.

A parallel series of Monographs was also published, but there have been no additions since 1971. Volume 82 of the main series, The New Naturalists,[1] described the series to date, with author biographies and a guide to collecting the books.

The original Editorial Board consisted of Julian Huxley, James Fisher, Dudley Stamp, John Gilmour and Eric Hosking. Many of the highly characteristic dust jacket illustrations are by Clifford and Rosemary Ellis; the latest ones are by Robert Gillmor.

Being a numbered series, with a very low print run for some volumes, they are highly collectable. Second-hand copies of the rarer volumes, in very good condition, can command high prices. In 2006, the 100th volume was produced. The series is on-going.

Format: Hardback Edition
ISBN: 9780008175313

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