Customer Reviews

Boas and Pythons of the World

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Mark O'Shea,s "Boas and Pythons" is 160 pages covering boas and pythons as well as other "basal" snakes, such as the blindsnakes, closer in evolutionary terms to the lizards from whom snakes are derived. The coffee-table sized volume examines these in their geographical categories ("The Americas", Australasia and the Pacific Ocean Islands"), etc. The first part of the volume briefly describes snake evolution, anatomy, internal organ structure, diversity, the place in the suborder serpentes of the snakes described and their families. The author goes on to the subject of constriction and a discussion of snake size, myths about snakes and snakes as maneaters.

This book is directed at the amateur with an interest in herpetology, perhaps, someone whose interest in snakes stems from having watched some of the Mr. O'Shea,s TV episodes. A minimum of technical terminology is used, descriptions being clear and understandable to non-professionals. THe book is richly illustrated with photographs of most of the species. After each species is discussed, i.e., the discovery history, scale numbers, color variation and other information, the author provides a final paragraph briefly summarizing range, size, habitat, prey, egg-laying(number of eggs) or live birth and similar species. A four page index and two page bibliography for further reading appear at the end of the book. An interesting feature throughout the text are italicized paragraphs quoting the personal field experiences of O'Shea and other herpetologists with some of the snakes described.

Maps are printed on the inside front and rear covers, sketching the world's continents with colored outlines of the ranges of the families covered in O'Shea's book. One drawback to this feature is that the author, in referring to islands and nations within a species range, does not provide a detailed-enough map to locate these, i.e., the Sunda Islands. Most readers would have to refer to a world atlas to determine where these are found.

Nevertheless, O'Shea does a fine job informing and stimulating the interest of non-professionals in these families of snakes and in herpetology, in general.

Mark O'shea knows his reptiles. He is one of the pioneers of herpetology and this is a handy book for lovers of constrictors large and small. It covers a wide range of locality-spefic species and sub-species. Great info, lots of color photos and very well written. A nice addition to anyone interrested in animals and specifically constrictors.

I liked this magazine because here in Brazil we have nothing on this literature, unfortunately.

It has very good information about Anacondas and Pythons, Mark Oshea is one of the best herpetologist in the world and has been in almost all the continents and he conducted a research on Anacondas in the Venezuelan Llanos.
Edouard Paiva