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The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians By NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY ( Knopf )
Release Date: 1979-11-12
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List Price: $19.95
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Product Description
This stunning guide explores the kingdom of snakes, toads, frogs, turtles, lizards, salamanders, and crocodiles, with information on physical appearance, voice, breeding cycles, habitat, range, and status in the wild. Poisonous or otherwise dangerous animals are distinguished with a warning symbol. An essay on observing reptiles and amphibians, and detailed anatomical drawings, round out the coverage in this comprehensive guide.
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Audubon book ( dewey1103 )
The books arrived in time for our field trip and gave us a good guide to identify some of our NC salamaders. Great, thanks.
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 excellent photographs + some interesting information + confusing ( loroguaro )
This photographic guide features excellent images of probably almost all North-American reptiles and amphibians, including many subspecies and some introduced species. However, these photographs are often arranged confusingly, and only labelled with the common, not the scientific names. This reduces the uselfulness of this book as a field guide in my view considerably, together with the separate position of the range maps.
The species accounts are quite short, but contain usually information about (1) the outer appearance, (2) the voice, (3) breeding, (4) habitat, (5) range, (6) behaviour/interesting details. However, often there is information lacking or given only in very comprised form, which could be expected to be presented in more detail (cf. breeding biology of Aneides aeneus). The species accounts are table-like and therefore very clear.
In the range maps, the subspecies are not discriminated.
The binding of the eight printing (1989) was quite good, hard-back like but with plastic soft-cover.
The index appears somewhat confusing to me, but this may be only a first impression.
Missing are in my view also sections about the general biology of herps, including their anatomy and systematics, about herpetology and the handling of these animals, and a list with useful addresses.
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time for an informational update ( hillzertoo )
As with all the Audubon field guides, the strong enduring points are the quality of the photos; the durable binding and leatherette cover; and the index that is organized and cross-referenced to the photos.
The descriptions are pretty staight forward; but, the summaries are woefully inadequate, even when this book was current. The anatomy, life cycle, and habitats are discussed for each species, albeit vaguely.
In the eventuality that there is an update . . . the details need to be fleshed out more; the range and distribution maps made more concise; and the descriptions of new species discovered plus expanded summations of each species would correct the deficiencies.
This field guide still has its place in the naturalists library, if only for the quality of the photos. For better information, however, you may want to look at the Peterson's guide.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
The Cloud Reckoner
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 Reptiles and Amphibians Field Guide
I love these books and can't say anything else than that!
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Good For Wilderness Getaways ( timjer )
Though I agree with others a revision is long overdue, and there have been a few new species discovered over the years; namely salamanders. I still find it quite helpful though, in identifying the lizard that just ran across the trail, or for that possible snake sighting. And as bad as my eyes are (Keratoconus), yes the maps could be larger, but I don't find them particularly hard to read. Except for certain species that have very small and restricted ranges. Then finding the little dot can be near impossible. Beautiful photographs. Gives one a better appreciation of these animals; that, along with years of watching the "Crocodile Hunter" God rest his soul.
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