The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada: Comprehensive Wildlife & Plant Identification Book - Perfect for Hiking, Camping & Nature Exploration

An excellent guide, and pretty comprehensive. Excellent illustrations. I've only found a very few species that weren't in this guide. 99% of the time I've found it included in this guide. Also, I found the distribution maps very helpful when narrowing down which species of chipmunks I found. Chipmunk species look really similar, so narrowing down the number of possibilities based on location is helpful. Also, for most species, the author has included tips with arrows and descriptions of key features that differentiate one species from another similar species. This made it much easier to identify the species of some of the butterflies or wildflowers I found.The only slight criticism I have is that this guide hasn't been updated to reflect changes in the scientific binomial names of a few of the wildflower species. Botanists sometimes reclassify the genus of flowers from time-to-time as genetic analysis gets better. Fortunately, John Muir Laws has published a more recent book that only covers wildflowers, and has updated taxonomic binomial names, and that book is small enough to carry in my cargo pants pocket as I hike, so I recommend buying both books if you're into accurately classifying your finds.When I'm out on a camping trip, I keep this larger general book in my vehicle to use as a reference against my photos when I finish a hike. And, I carry the smaller wildflower book in my pocket as I hike, so they work well together.