It can be had from lafranch@otenet.gr

With the subtitle "Identifying Butterflies is Easy!" this is a first, insofar as it provides keys for identification by progressively identifying or eliminating specific features. It contains excellent photography of almost all European species, often with little arrows pointing out which features to look at, as well as species maps and brief notes on habitat and timing. Somehow this has been condensed into a 351 page, flexible paperback, small and light enough to travel with you (much smaller than Tolman and Lewington).

            The key has been nicely blended with colour photography to make it not only readable, but useable in the field. I took the opportunity to try it out on a selection of Pyrgus species (grizzled skippers) photographed in Italy in June 2004. These are a notoriously difficult complex, with eleven species flying in the area I visited. Fortunately, a colleague had provided excellent digital imagery of upperside and underside of each of the specimens we had netted, so the key could be worked and re-checked. My expertise was appropriate to the task: good knowledge of the only British member of the genus, slight familiarity with two others, and absolutely none of the remainder. I can report success, perhaps not to the degree that I can agree with the author that “identifying butterflies is easy”, but certainly to say that five of the six specimens imaged were identified with confidence, and the sixth after some difficulty, determined as a likely duplicate. The whole experience gave me a high level of confidence in Lafranchis’ identification features, and certainly improved my grasp of what to look for in the skippers.

            As a result, I have no hesitation in recommending it as a first-class volume for anyone travelling to the parts of Europe that can bring you into contact with unfamiliar species. The author lives in Greece, and covers the distribution of endemic and regional species with close-up maps in place of the standard thumbnails, not only for Greece, but also for Spain, Corsica/Sardinia and Italy, as appropriate. His definition of Europe is not as broad as Kudrna’s MEB Atlas, and Cyprus and the Canary Islands are just cut off, but the scope is fine for most holiday trips.

            Whilst acknowledging that the identification of some species requires microscopic examination, Lafranchis goes a step further than most guides by explaining how a hand lens may be used to separate some species when live specimens are properly held to expose the genitalia. Illustrations of the male genitalia of 28 species are given, along with a method of examining them that allows them to be released unharmed.

            This is a practical guide, and care has been taken not to clutter the main text with bibliographic detail. There is a full systematic list for the 420 species covered, and a clear index, by English or scientific names. It is also the fruit of a great deal of expertise, and I expect my copy to get a lot of use.