New, Free Field Guide to Common Bees & Wasps of Ohio Now Available

I am pleased to announce the publication of Common Bees & Wasps of Ohio, a mini field guide produced by the Ohio Division of Wildlife, written mostly by yours truly. It is available free of charge (except shipping, I presume), but will also be posted online as a downloadable PDF at the ODNR website as one of the wildlife identification guides.

This project was two years in the making, and thanks must be directed to Jim McCormac, Chad Crouch, and the other amazing people at Ohio Division of Natural Resources. They literally work miracles in a ridiculously short window before these things go to the printer.

We were also fortunate to have stellar images contributed by my personal friends Samantha Gallagher, MaLisa Spring, Betsy Betros, Heather Holm, Mary Ann Barnett, Lynette Schimming, Kim Phillips, and Jim McCormac, among others. Additional contributions came from friends who I simply don't know yet. The graphics team even made my images look awesome, which is a real feat if you consider only the fact that my camera has relatively poor resolution for publication purposes.

Lastly, I am indebted to Dr. John Ascher of the American Museum of Natural History, Doug Yanega of University of California, Riverside, and Sam Droege of the United States Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center for their scholarly and discerning critique of both the text and the images. The accuracy of our work is far better for their reviews.

Wait a minute. I forgot to thank the most important group of all: Thank you to the people of the state of Ohio who make these publications possible through generous donations to the Wildlife Diversity Fund. We hope you find this latest, 78-page addition to the library of knowledge to be useful and entertaining.