DK Natural History: Insects

DK Natural History: Insects
From DK Canada

About the Illustrated eBook

This book explores a group of animals that first appeared on land more than 400 million years ago—insects. A comprehensive introduction places insects in the context of other living things, and an extensive catalog showcases the amazing variety of earth’s most abundant—and often bizarre—animals. From butterflies and moths to dragonflies and grasshoppers, from beetles and bees to ants and earwigs, hundreds of individual specimens are profiled in incredible detail, each accompanied by clear, concise text and key data.

Conceived from the ground up to take advantage of this amazing new technology, DK Natural History: Insects brings the subject to life like never before, and offers an amazing range of interactive features, including audio , videos, and interactive galleries.
 
DK Natural History: Insects includes:
• Over 80 interactive and illustrated pages
• A comprehensive introduction explaining how insects fit into the natural world, which also explains their anatomy and life cycles
• Illustrated profiles of nearly 300 animals
• Hundreds of crystal-clear photographs, many specially commissioned
• Contextual images

DK Natural History: Insects forms part of an ongoing series that is a landmark in illustrated reference publishing and was authenticated by experts at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The complete series offers an unrivalled visual survey of Earth’s natural history, giving a clear overview of the natural world with over 6,000 species featured.

My Thoughts

Discover the world of insects with the tips of your fingers with DK Natural History Insects.   This definitive visual guide will introduce you and your children to the world of insects with detailed photography and a information on the various species like

• Mayflies
• Damselflies & Dragonflies
• Stick & Leaf insects
• Earwigs
• Praying Mantids
• Crickets & Grasshoppers
• Cockroaches
• Termites
• True Bugs
• Parasitic lice, Barklice & Booklice
• Thrips, snakeflies, alderflies & Dobsonflies
• Lacewings & Relatives
• Beetles
• Scorpionflies, Fleas
• True Flies
• Caddisflies
• Moths & Butterflies
• Sawflies, Wasps, Bees, & Ants

I find it interesting to flip through the pages and discover various insects from around the world.    Seeing their images up close and personal on the iPad is interesting.  There are also videos as well as sound files throughout this ebook.    Though the videos do not have sounds themselves, I was able to hear what crickets sound like via a sound file included in the page.   There are numerous insects throughout the world and I suspect that we have not discovered all of them yet.    But seeing the beautiful colors and how different each of them are is a delight for the eyes.   Each page contains information on the insect presented as well as different images either to compare with other of the same species or different angles for the same kind.

Click on the images below to discover the presentation of this eBook.

Thought I find this book very interesting, I have a couple of disappointments.   First I couldn’t find a table of content  where I can access the type of  bug I want to see/learn in the eBook.    The only way I could go through the book to find beetles for example would be to flip the pages until I reach the sections.    Also the videos don’t have any sound though there is some sound included at some part of the eBook.    Personally, I would prefer having a bit of music with the videos just to make it more interesting.

Also, I need to mention that the eBook is a bit slow to load when selecting it or when the pages when flipping through it.   Mind you I have the first version of the iPad which might explain the time delay.   A few times, the eBook also crashed when I was going through it.  Again I suspect that this problem might not be frequent if you are using an iPad2 or the New iPad.

The DK Natural History Insects eBook is available for purchase for the price of 4.99$ on iTunes.  Note that this eBook is only for the iPad or your computer with iTunes.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.