I really don't think you are right here, go through the book and count how many species are reliably identifiable to species and have no confusion taxa in Europe. I've not done this exhaustively, but a quick look through several groups and many (probably a majority) of illustrations are of species that have closely similar congenerics which would require microscopic work or at least very good images from several angles to separate. Rather I think the book is intended as an overview of each family. Unfortunately the text does not indicate which species are highly individual, and which are part of a group of similar species, so without being a specialist you cant know if the individual you are trying to identify is one of these. You only need to look on any internet forum to see just how wildly wide of the mark "nearest fit IDs" can be.
While obviously the insect diversity of Poland will be less than Europe as a whole, it is almost certainly greater than Britain, and have many more undescribed species. Britain has about 25000 species recorded, I know that even near-Continental countries have a much greater number of many families.
The alternative is to start small and do it well, rather than try to identify everything and get frustrated with genus-level or unsatisfactory answers, pick a group with a good literature. Then add groups progressively as confidence builds.
The snap and post route is also open to everyone who can afford a good digital camera. I do this myself for groups I have little experience of, but I would hope naturalists will use this as a route into becoming experienced identifiers themselves. If they don't we'll eventually run out of people who can identify posted photos!
I have the funny feeling that either you didn't read my posts above, or that my ability to express myself in English is rather poor.
I really don't think you are right here, go through the book and count how many species are reliably identifiable to species and have no confusion taxa in Europe. I've not done this exhaustively, but a quick look through several groups and many (probably a majority) of illustrations are of species that have closely similar congenerics which would require microscopic work or at least very good images from several angles to separate. Rather I think the book is intended as an overview of each family. Unfortunately the text does not indicate which species are highly individual, and which are part of a group of similar species, so without being a specialist you cant know if the individual you are trying to identify is one of these.
Re (from post #4):
The book is good to narrow down your ID to Family level first and with some luck to genus. You can imagine that with such diversity there is no book that could cover all insect species (especially if you included the Mediterranean). For example, one of the Hymenoptera families, the Mutillidae, is represented in Europe by about 150 species, whilst there are only 3 of those illustrated in the book (those that occur further north and are more widespread). Also, many species are only identifiable by examining the genitalia or with the aid of a powerful stereomicroscope, differing in minimal features from the closest species and those are beyond the scope of this work.
If you reach genus level ID then you'll need to check for specialized literature on many cases to get the exact species (or going to Fauna Europaea website first to know what are the possible species and then go to find the original descriptions, if available online). For common and widespread species specific ID is sometimes possible with the book, and this becomes more true as you go north and west in Europe. The guide is mostly oriented to field ID, and for that it is quite functional.
I can add that not even all families are represented in the book, but those are neglectable from a beginners point of view.
You only need to look on any internet forum to see just how wildly wide of the mark "nearest fit IDs" can be.
I do look at insect internet foruns daily and I'm well aware of this. Even the best specialists for one given group in Europe have doubts (even with the specimen physically present in front of them) and a specialist more often than not will have serious limitations with species from groups he's not familiar with.
My favourite forum is the
Forum Entomologi Italiani which is a great source of knowledge, but mainly focused on Italian fauna.
While obviously the insect diversity of Poland will be less than Europe as a whole, it is almost certainly greater than Britain, and have many more undescribed species. Britain has about 25000 species recorded, I know that even near-Continental countries have a much greater number of many families.
The alternative is to start small and do it well, rather than try to identify everything and get frustrated with genus-level or unsatisfactory answers, pick a group with a good literature. Then add groups progressively as confidence builds.
Yes, there are quite a few undescribed species around. If you want to find new species come to Iberia where at least 3-5% of all species are probably wating to be described. But why would be
undescribed species an issue to the OP?
Also, what is the problem of having a general book first and then, after being aware a bit more of the existing diversity, perhaps buying a book specialized on day-flying butterflies, or dragonflies or whatever family you'd like to know more about?
From post#1:
but there is a lot of families, many very hard to ID in the field and I don't want to start buying books on each of them. For the Czech Republic, there is a nice feild guide to "all animals" - which quite unsurprisingly spends most of the room on insects - it is by no means exhaustive, it just shows the things you may reasonably expect to encounter AND identify, which is the only sane approach given the sheer number of species.
This is what the OP asked for, no?
When I was doing my Biology degree, more than 20 years ago, this book was actually used as a good overview for students in Entomology classes. Why wouldn't this be enough as a beginners level guidance for a general purpose naturalist? There have been several editions btw, I'm not sure what you have is nearly close to the current edition (I have 2 of those, the oldest from 2000).
The snap and post route is also open to everyone who can afford a good digital camera. I do this myself for groups I have little experience of, but I would hope naturalists will use this as a route into becoming experienced identifiers themselves. If they don't we'll eventually run out of people who can identify posted photos!
This actually contradicts what you've been saying above. Most species
will not be identifiable with the snap and post approach, except for very specific groups, such as dragonflies, most (not all) day-flying butterflies and a few others. You'll still need to kill many of the species if you want specialists to be able to ID your insects from photos (i.e. you'll need high quality photos of certain parts usually not possible from a field photograph - of course with many exceptions).
So, I'm not sure what part of my post you think wasn't right, but if you read carefully you'll notice that we actually have the same oppinion on most of this (as I see it, at least).
