Customer Reviews

Amphibians and Reptiles of Pennsylvania and the Northeast (Comstock Book in Hereptology)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Book is very good for identifing PA species. It contains a good set of color plates, a identication key and text describing the species. The text describing reproduction and habitat is also quite good. The downside of the book is the range maps. Inside of PA the author uses dots at specific locations, outside of Pa the author shades the area that the species occurs in. The specific location dots in PA are not complete. Overall I would recomend this book for people who wish to learn about and identify Pennsylvania's Reptiles and Amphibians.

The maps of this book are too difficult to read, and while there are numerous references to specific Pennsylvania counties, there is no map of the counties for which to refer. The subtitle, "and the Northeast" seems to have been an afterthought. Little attention is given to the region outside of Pennsylvania. Most disappointing are glaring omissions, such as the absence of the Tiger Salamander from the key to salamander larvae. The formatting of the text is unfriendly and it is difficult to quickly flip to a species account, as the headings are of the same font and set off very little from the rest of the text. The original morphometric data in the appendix is one nice feature of the book.

At first look, this book doesnt seem like much, but it is a wealth of knowledge. Its bigger than a field guide, most likely a shelf book, but has alot of info a field guide doesnt deliver. The reason I rated it 4/5 stars is, like someone else said, the plates page, doesn't tell you what page the species account is on....which for some can be quite the stumbling block. What I'd recomend is grab a pen or pencil on a rainy day, and put the page numbers in yourself. Its your book, if your doing it to help you, why not do it. The main feature I like about the book is, it has the counties of PA marked, and little red dots where ones were captured, inside the county. So, if your looking for a book on Amphibians and Reptiles that live in PA, buy it up, just be prepared to be doing alot of flipping to the back of the book, and looking up page numbers....

Amphibians and Reptiles of Pennsylvania and the Northeast has many good qualities. I ran through the keys with a few salamander and frog species and they are very straight forward, and I did not encounter any mistakes yet. The real selling point for this text is the excellent species accounts. I'm all about scientific names, and having the interpretation of the epithets' meanings is great. The accounts are very detailed and provide a good addition of the ecology of each species which complements the identifications quite well. The range maps are sufficient for the region and the introduction was very informative.
There are spelling mistakes, however, throughout the text that are a little frustrating. The color plates are not very diagnostic at all, so this book is best used as a supplemental text to another guide with better illustrations. In the field, I will use this text's keys as the primary identification tool, and then use either the Peterson's or Audubon's herp guide to confirm my identifications. I am a little picky because I do not like to use photographs in my identification process. I much prefer diagrams/illustrations/keys. Being an insect enthusiast primarily, I mostly enjoy working with keys. All and all this is a good text for PA herps, but I feel that I have to remark on the formatting of the text in the book. Sometimes I like to pick up the book and just page through looking at the plates. There are no references below each photo that directs the reader to the corresponding species' accounts. You have to constantly page back to the appendix to find these sections. To solve this problem, I had to write in pencil the pages for each species account under each photograph. Second, it seemed like they were charged for each bold word. There isn't any real demarcation between each species account. Use of bold type, and/or a line separating the species accounts would be nice. Overall I am happy with my purchase, and have been referencing it almost daily. I would recommend this book.