the Hymenoptera atlas
I've just received a copy of the "/Blanokřídlí České republiky
I/" book, and I think it's extreeeemely good; for the moment I can only
speak about the graphic part, of course, as my knowledge of Czech is
almost non-existent (I'll have to try and learn some, if I want to get
even more from the book), but obviously the graphic part is a very
substantial part of the book, so it's good even if one only looks at the
photographs. I think the illustrations are absolutely splendid, both
because of the high number of photos per species (side views, faces,
natural size images...) and the rather large number of illustrated taxa.
Apart from having a good look at the Vespidae and the other vespoid
groups I study, I intend to use the book as a "quick placement" tool for
the groups I don't study: I often have to give an approximate (genus or
genus group) identification of Spanish bees or spheciforms, and for this
the book may prove invaluable (with the obvious caveat that the Spanish
fauna is somewhat different).
Is there any chance that you could have the book published in
German or, better still, in English (maybe with some adaptations to
cover more West European and Mediterranean species), for example by some
British publishing company with experience in insect guides? I'm
thinking of J. Zahradník's (1991) "/Bees, wasps and ants/" (I don't know
the original Czech title), published by a London company: even though
it has great merit (an excellent text, some very good illustrations and
even some keys), Zahradnik's book quite frankly is not very good as an
identification guide, while your new book /is/, and a good guide might
prove interesting for an English-language publisher.
