My main reason for wanting to visit Japan is the wild variety of insects, arachnids, and other invertebrates that live over there. …and also the food, but mostly the bugs.
So, to both practice my language skills and learn more about japanese bugs, I want to find some books, blogs, or other texts in japanese about insects.
Anything from baby’s/kid’s books (which is probably about my reading level at the moment, orz) to proper entomology books, and ESPECIALLY field guides. I’d kill for the JPN equivalent to my “butterflies of Ontario” guide, if such a thing exists! And while they aren’t bugs, I’m also a birder, so if you know of a good japanese bird field guide, I’d appreciate that as well.
Thank you!
2 comments
I bought this book about the Dragonflies of Japan and it’s a superb field reference guide for identifying dragonflies there:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%B0%BE%E5%9C%92-%E6%9A%81/dp/4829984082/
This is what a typical entry looks like:
https://i.imgur.com/8rCN4gH.jpeg
I’m just a little disappointed that some of my favourite ones are only found on island preserves closed to everybody except researchers!
I think for a language learner this is going to be a bit packed with technical terms, but the diagrams showing how to distinguish similar looking species are excellent.
I used this to identify most of the odonata I took pics of over there:
https://www.sherlockphotography.org/Animals/Odonata-dragonflies-and-damselflies/
Go to Okinawa. The further south, the more of… what you want.