Clear plates with good, yet badly printed pictures, and too little information on the species' biology

books:


	• A Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians of Eastern & Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Series) Roger Conant, Joseph T. Collins Houghton Mifflin, 1998 - 640 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Clear plates with good, yet badly printed pictures, and too little information on the species' biology

This book features clear plates with apparently well painted views of probably all the species of amphibians and reptiles occuring in Canada and the USA east of the Rocky Mountains, apparently also including those of Puerto Rico and introduced ones. Unfortunately, the plates of the third edition from 1998 are printed badly, with the colour dots not completely blurring in front of the reader's eye, and the pictures are a little tiny anyway. On the page opposing the plates are the common and scientific names given, as well as some important details of their appearance. Many species are represented with several images (e.g. from the side, from below; adults, juveniles), but this would probably be warranted for even more species.
The species accounts are, however, usually much too short, giving almost no detail about biology and life history of the species. Among them are, however, some colour photographs, whose printing resolution is usually also somewhat too bad, though.
The range maps are in colour and show the different subspecies in different shades, yet they are also somewhat confusing, because water bodies like the sea or the great lakes are not shaded differently from the land, so that their borders look like the state borders, and because the range borders have also be drawn in black (maybe for copying?).
Laudable is the existence of a general section about amphibians and reptiles and their catching, handling and captive care. This section would be worth expanding, though.
The third printing (1998) is/was, as already stated, not very good because of its low colour resolution and its maybe somewhat too small size, and it is/was bind only as paperback with relatively thick pages throughout.

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Excellent for identification of reptiles and amphibians

I live in North Carolina and I have been able to identify all the snakes, lizards, turtles, and frogs that I have found using this book. Good descriptions and photos to help you tell the difference between different species.

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Excellent gift for a friend

Thank you for your timely shipping of this brand new book. I ordered it for a friend who is looking forward to getting it soon.

Excellent reference!

The book is great. Wonderful range maps, nice pictures, generally good ID characters. Could use some more info on larval amphibian identification though.

Great guide

I have had this book for several years and absolutly love it. Not only is it nicely informative, it holds up well in the feild. I can not begin to count the number of times I have slipped (I generally keep it tucked in my waist band) in creeks on outings. After years of abuse, my cover is a worn, spine wrinkled and paged stained, but it's still solidly bound.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

This newly designed field guides features detailed descriptions of 595 species and subspecies. The 656 full-color illustrations and 384 drawings show key details for accurate identification. More than 100 color photographs and 333 color photographs and 333 color distribution maps accompany the species descriptions.

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