Customer Reviews

Snakes of the United States and Canada

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This book provides a tremendous amount of information for many species and subspecies. It includes habitat, range, diet, etc. I recommend this book as a reference book for anyone interested in snakes. In my opinion, this book is not intended to be read from cover to cover, since it reads more like a scientific/academic reference field guide for general snake species info.

I got this book because my grandfather lives on 2 1/2 acres back in the mountains, and I always find little snakes to catch. Now of course a Petterson's Field Guide would serve me a better purpose on IDing them in the field, but I wanted somthing that had ALOT of information on snakes, and well, I found it. I'm a junior in highschool right now and when I first got this, I could have sworn it was a textbook just on snakes. It comes with a dust jacket, and has a really heavy duty hard cover. When I opened it up, WOW. I have the training/experiance level of, 0 out of 10, so I was quickly overwhelmed when I first opened it up to the Common Garter Snake (Eastern and subspeices) and looked for its average length, and first seen the term TBL (Total Body Length) I quickly realized that this isn't a recreational book, this is hardcore. In my opinion, this book is awesome, if your into snakes. If your just wanting a book to ID snakes that you see around your property, on the trails around the campsite,A Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians of Eastern & Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Series) is a better way to go, and won't kill your wallet. If your planning on going into the biology field, such as herpetology, or Zoology (Like me!) this text is AWESOME! Even if your a die hard snake fan, this book is great. Its just that, this book, is DETAILED. When it says it has where they live, what eats them, what they eat, up top in the amazon description, no no no, it has this, but in great detail! Anywhere from 3-8 color photos per species of snake, showing various color phases/morphs. It has their denning sites, when they are most active, what they tend to do when threatened or handled, AND THE ONE FEATURE I LOVE THE MOST Average Body Lengths depending on AGE! So lets say a Garter Snake was 1 year old and you just caught him, and he measured 58cm, The book has a part in each extensive writeup that says

Male 1 Year Old: 30cm-68cm (IM JUST GUESSING RANDOM NUMBERS this isnt what the book has)
Female 1 Year Old: 35-72cm

THIS I LOVE!!! Now I can guess a rough age on the snake I catch! Another thing the book has per species is sexual dimorphism, (I think I spelled that right) which in common talk, how to tell a boy from a girl and vice versa, WITHOUT dangerous probing. Probing is usually the way to sex a snake, but its very dangerous if done by anyone other than a vet or a trained wildlife expert, us rookies we would risk harming the snake very badly if we did it. The book tells you the differences so you can make a good estimated guess without harming the snake. Like I said before this book is a awesome tool if your looking to study snakes and get extensive knowledge on them, if your looking for a field guide to carry with you in the woods, the one above is best, and that has more than snakes in it. So in a nutshell


Buy this book if:
You want to learn alot, and I mean ALOT about snakes.
If your going to be studying snakes.
If you want to learn more about a certain species.
If you deal with snakes on a daily basis.
If you want to learn technical facts about snakes.

Dont buy this book if:
Your looking for a field guide.
Your afraid of snakes.


Enjoy!

This is an awesome book for beginners and professionals alike. I was amazed at the amount of information for each snake. definitely not small enough for a field guide, if thats what you're wanting.

I knew that by reading previous reviews that this was the book I'd been looking for. I am on a mission to learn everything there is to know about all the snakes in the U.S. and this book is a most excellent tool. The pictures are beautiful and I love the location maps. It is everything I expected and more!

IF you want an in-depth look into the snakes of the U. S., this is it.
The comprehensive keys, excellent photographs, and detailed information makes this the best snake book I own.
I am a master's student and the information in this book as well as the comprehensive literature cited will help me in my studies.

Excellent reference book on the Snakes of the United States and Canada. As a retailer of an Ethical and Safe Snake Trap from Australia and a licensed Snake Handler, we found the information and photography very useful.

This book is a tremendous resource but is not a field guide, this is a very large book. Each species is given a generous writeup with fascinating information that is little known for each. I would recommend this to professionals and hobbyists alike. I've passed this around to people in my Herp Club and they are all very impressed. Buy this if you're at all interested in the Snakes of U.S and Canada.

The team effort of Carl H. Ernst (Professor of Biology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia) and Evelyn M. Ernst (Director of Information for the National Science Resource Center in Washington DC), Snakes Of The United States And Canada Is a brilliantly conceived and presented, 668-page encyclopedia filled from cover to cover with concise descriptions and up-to-date information concerning habitats, predators, behavior, reproduction, and more for all of the American and Canadian snake species from coast to coast. Full color photographs of each fascinating species are combined with meticulous, detailed, definitive descriptive entries, making Snakes Of The United States And Canada a professional quality addition to professional and academic Herpetology Resource reference collections.