34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Its time for a new edition, July 8, 2000
This review is from: The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians (Vinyl Bound)
This book was written in 1979. The text and photographs were excellent, although the range maps were so small as to be useless, and the common names were the awkwardly academic types used in the first half of the last century. Supposedly, this book was updated in 1997. The text is still good, as are the photographs, but the common names still have not been corrected, the range maps are still too small, and over 70 new species that are now recognized from North America are missing from this book. This Audubon Guide is out-dated. Time to write a new one, with standard common names, modern taxonomy (drop the subspecies), and maybe some new photographs. Not recommended. Get the Peterson Guide. It may be a decade old, but its newer than this book.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the book for anyone from children to professionals., December 14, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians (Vinyl Bound)
My son became fascinated with reptiles and amphibians at around age 4. This book has helped us both tremendously to understand and identify creatures all around us. We have devoured books of all types at our local library and we keep coming back to this one. The pictures are fabulous and easy enough for a child to use. The text is informative and well presented. My son will be thrilled to find this book under the Christmas tree this year!
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
mediocre, May 29, 2004
This review is from: The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians (Vinyl Bound)
This guide is beset with problems, and there are better out there.
The range maps are so general as to be mostly useless. They're incredibly small, to the point where it's hard to discern where the lines on it are; is that snake's western range limit NM or AZ? You can't tell! The written descriptions of ranges are too vauge as well; they list eastern, western, southern and northern limits, but it's not like an animals range will make a nice little square; there are places within those boundaries where it does not occur. Maybe a lizards westernmost point is in, say Alamogordo, NM: it'll list that as it's westernmost point. but say, as it's range extends northward, it is restricted to a more easterly distribution; that won't be mentioned.
Furthermore, the guide is 25 years old. There have been massive taxonomic revisions since this was written; new species have been discovered, some species have been combined, some subspecies complexes split, etc. Ranges have also shifted since '79, due to development and climatic changes.
Also, the guide only deals with species level info. This is unnacceptable for some animals; L. getula (kingsnake) has some 7-8 subspecies, ranging from the mexican black to the desert to the eastern; these animals have markedly different apperances, habitat, ranges, and behaviors. But the guide doesn't deal with that; it list info for "L. getula" in general, without dividing it into subspecies information. This makes the guide worthless for Pituophis melanoleucus, Lampropeltis getula, Lampropeltis traingulum, and several other species which contain a wide range of different subspecies.
So what to do? Buy a good local field guide; they exist for most states- Degenhardt's Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico is execellent. Texas Snakes (Dixon) is good. Failing all else, most states maintain a listing of most native fauna online, usually whatever department deals with hunting and state parks will have a link to it. There is probably a good field guide for reptiles and amphibians of your state. If you need one for a bigger area, try Peterson's. They offer regional guides; one western and one eastern and central. They're a little more difficult to learn to use, but they're far more current, far more detailed, and once figured out, far more useful.
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