| Authors | Peter B. Hardy & James M. Lawrence |
| Language | English |
| ISBN | 9780995749603 |
| Publisher | Siri Scientific Press |
| Pages | 448 |
| Size | 240 x 165 mm |
| Format | Paperback |
| Images | Colour images |
| Year published | 2017 |
The need for a comprehensive field guide to the butterflies of the Philippines has long been apparent. Interest in the butterflies in this country is rapidly moving away from the museum and commercial collector approach towards appreciating them as living organisms with a significant role in the ecosystem.
All the 947 known Philippine butterfly species are listed in this book, with two-thirds of them illustrated, mostly from life (1,080 photographs, supplemented with an additional 176 photographs of museum specimens), on the 157 colour plates. These plates should permit the interested amateur naturalist to identify any of the commoner species, and indeed most of the more localised ones.
The detailed introductory section discusses Philippine geography, climate, vegetation and butterfly biology, including taxonomy, life cycle, adult intraspecific variation, mimicry, biogeography and conservation. An index to scientific and vernacular names is included.
About the Authors
Peter B. Hardy is a retired civil servant with a passion for Lepidoptera ever since his school days. His interests are in studying and photographing live butterflies in their natural habitats, and in preserving those habitats. As a regional co-ordinator in the Butterflies for the New Millennium recording scheme he has studied the butterflies around Manchester, U.K. in great detail and is the author of Butterflies of Greater Manchester, and is author or co-author of around fifty scientific papers on butterfly ecology. From the 1980s he also travelled abroad extensively, having a special leaning towards the Oriental region and in particular the Philippines, where he lived from 2000 to 2002, as well as making a number of shorter visits between 1988 and 2011.
James M. Lawrence has a PhD in Entomology from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is author of Field Guide to Butterflies of Seychelles and has published more than thirty scientific papers on the ecology and conservation of Seychelles and South African invertebrates, focusing mainly on butterflies and millipedes. James currently lives in South Africa where he works as a pilot for a local airline, and is a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa.
