This small and beautiful pictorial encyclopedia of 550 little creatures 29 orders of insects and a selection of spiders and other terrestrial arthropods highlights each family's chief characteristics, including memorable physical traits, life cycle, habitat, and larval stages. An introduction explains what an insect is and provides a practical photographic identification key to the main insect groups, which in turn guides users to the correct insect. Pages are laid out like a word-processing screen in which order, family, size, number of species, and feeding habits always appear in color-coded, easy-to-locate top and bottom margins. McGavin is a lecturer in zoology at Oxford. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)