WWW.IRCF.ORG TABLE OF CONTENTS IRCF REPTILES &IRCF AMPHIBIANS REPTILES • VOL &15, AMPHIBIANS NO 4 • DEC 2008 • 189 27(2):355–357 • AUG 2020
IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS CONSERVATION AND NATURAL HISTORY
TABLE OF CONTENTS BOOK REVIEW FEATURE ARTICLES . Chasing Bullsnakes (Pituophis catenifer sayi) in Wisconsin: On the Road to UnderstandingA Much-needed the Ecology and Conservation of the Midwest’s Giant Tonic Serpent ...... Joshua M. Kapfer 190 . The Shared History of Treeboas (Corallus grenadensis) and Humans on Grenada: A Hypothetical Excursion ...... Robert W. Henderson 198
RESEARCH ARTICLESfor African Snakes . The Texas Horned Lizard in Central and Western Texas ...... Emily Henry, Jason Brewer, Krista Mougey, and Gad Perry 204 . The Knight Anole (Anolis equestris) in Florida Snakes of Central and Western ...... Africa. 2019.Brian J. Jean-PhilippeCamposano, Kenneth L. Krysko, Kevin M. Enge, Ellen M. Donlan, and Michael Granatosky 212 Chippaux and Kate Jackson. Johns Hopkins University Press, CONSERVATION ALERT Baltimore, Maryland.. xWorld’s + 429 Mammals pp. inHardcover Crisis ...... — ISBN: 978- ...... 220 1-4214-2719-5. $84.95.. More Than Mammals ...... 223 . The “Dow Jones Index” of Biodiversity ...... 225
I am a field guideHUSBANDRY junkie. The one that began this addic- tion was the expanded. Captive edition Care of of the RogerCentral Netted Conant Dragon ...... and Joseph Shannon Plummer 226 Collins’s Reptiles andPROFILE Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America published in .1998.Kraig Adler: Fair A Lifetime or not, Promoting that Herpetologyguide is ...... the stan- Michael L. Treglia 234 dard to which I compare all other guides. I firmly believe that COMMENTARY a proper field guide comes. The Turtles down Have to Been good Watching pictures, Me ...... great maps, Eric Gangloff 238 and accurate illustrations. Reference books, on the other hand, should emphasizeBOOK comprehensiveREVIEW summaries of what . Threatened Amphibians of the World edited by S.N. Stuart, M. Hoffmann, J.S. Chanson, N.A. Cox, is known about each speciesR. Berridge, and P. Ramani, outlines and B.E. thatYoung ...... are densely Robert Powell 243 cited with the relevant literature. Jean-Philippe Chippaux and Kate Jackson’s SnakesCONSERVATION of Central RESEARCH and Western REPORTS: Africa Summaries seam- of Published Conservation Research Reports ...... 245 NATURAL HISTORY RESEARCH REPORTS: Summaries of Published Reports on Natural History ...... 247 lessly blends these twoNEWBRIEFS herpetological ...... genres in such a way ...... 248 that both field-guide EDITORIALand reference-book INFORMATION connoisseurs ...... will be ...... 251 satisfied. Presented asFOCUS a guide ON to CONSERVATION snake identification,: A Project Youthis Can syn Support- ...... 252 optic and scholarly book is still light enough to be carried into the field and will be invaluable to anyone attempting to iden- tify the panoply of poorly characterizedFront Cover.snakes Shannon in the Plummer. region. Back Cover. Michael Kern The book is densely populated withTotat numerous et velleseque photographsaudant mo Totat et velleseque audant mo of rare species, remarkably accurateestibus head inveliquo scalation velique drawings, rerchil estibus inveliquo velique rerchil erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus and dot-based range maps for almostaut all dolor of apictothe moreinvere pe than dolum 250 aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum species of snakes in the region. fugiatis maionsequat eumque of lateral,fugiatis maionsequat dorsal, andeumque ventral views showing color-coded head moditia erere nonsedis ma sectiatur moditia erere nonsedis ma sectia- The part of this book that really takesma derrovitae it over voluptam, the top as quosare the scalestur ma of derrovitae six African voluptam, species as of snakes that highlight variation in drawings of snake morphology and scalation,accullabo. which are essen- head-scalation diversity. These images show how head scales tial for correctly identifying African species. Many of these were vary in shape and size across taxa and would make excellent drawn by hand from real specimens (a rare occurrence today) or posters in any herpetology classroom. In addition to the many redrawn from long-forgotten literature sources. Chapter 1, for excellent snake illustrations in the introduction, including the example, covers “The Identification of African Snakes” and is anatomical renderings in chapter 2, the over 120 line-drawings one of the best introductions to diagnostic morphological char- throughout the book display head scalation in three different acters for snakes I have ever seen. The chapter includes well- anatomical views. Almost all of these renderings were drawn by labelled drawings of head scalation, many of which are color- Tuhin Giri, and this major artistic contribution really makes this coded for easy cross-species comparisons, pictures of live animals book stand out among other guides. Most importantly, each with labels differentiating important differences in scalation, and drawing of head scalation includes the specimen’s museum col- a scientific text describing anatomical terminology. This chapter lection number. Rarely do synoptic guides include this level of is a master class in using external morphology for African snake detail for images — and herpetology is the worse for it. With taxonomy and includes some of the book’s most informative museum numbers in the captions, these drawings can now be figures (e.g., Figures 1.13, 1.15, and 1.17), which are drawings linked (forever) to the specimens they represent. This aspect of
Copyright © 2020. Daniel F. Hughes. All rights reserved. 355 IRCF Reptiles & Amphibians ISSN 1098-6324 HUGHES IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS • 27(2):355–357 • AUG 2020 the book should be an example for future guides and should be buried in the introduction on page 40. While not a problem extended to photographs of live animals when they are collected. for everyone, the species maps do not include country names, If done properly, all of these data sources could be linked to the so some readers will need to go back-and-forth from the refer- physical specimens, a minor undertaking that would increase ence maps and the species maps. the value of natural history specimens in a digitized world. Typesetting and quality issues will exist in almost any As someone who is always seeking new places and species, 429-page book that covers such an immense diversity of spe- I obsess over range maps. I spend most of my time prepar- cies, and I refer readers to the review by Pauwels and Brecko ing for field expeditions by looking over species distribution (2020) for a detailed description of those and other incon- maps and tracking down type localities for species, subspecies, sistencies that occur in this book. For example, some of the and synonymized species that I want to collect. For biodiver- hand-drawn images are cut-off, and a handful of the live- sity expeditions and taxonomic revisions, topotypic material snake pictures are inconsistent in quality and highly variable (i.e., specimens and tissues collected from the type locality) in size (mostly too small). Photographic descriptions do not is essential, and this book provides a basic description of the go beyond the country level, which masks the potential geo- type locality for each species covered, something that is often graphical variation in these species, many of which were recti- missing from guides. For more detailed information on type fied by Pauwels and Brecko (2020). The text describing each localities and those beyond the species level, the reader must species is heavy on diagnostic characters and scale counts at look elsewhere, but that should not be a problem with Peter the expense of other information. The genus-level treatments Uetz’s Reptile Database bookmarked. The range maps them- include some natural history data, but the general lack of eco- selves are dot-based, which I prefer over the style of many logical and demographic information is understandable given guides where the species range is more art than science and the paucity of such data for African snakes (Shine and Spawls usually takes the form of colorful paint swatches over large 2020). An example of this deficiency starts on page 105 when swaths of areas where the species does not occur. Ranges por- discussing the mambas (genus Dendroaspis). The authors trayed as dots on a map — which are best when based on col- state that Africa’s most well-known snake, the Black Mamba lected specimens stored in museums — give the reader a more (D. polylepis), is a terrestrial species, but this is at best a gross accurate (albeit still incomplete) view of where and in what oversimplification. While on a museum-collecting expedi- macrohabitats a species has been found. Unfortunately, the tion in 2016 to the White Nile Region of northern Uganda, maps in this book do not explicitly provide the sources from I encountered a large male D. polylepis at the top of a moun- which the dots originated, so the reader cannot track down tain. As this was my first Black Mamba, I had two thoughts: the specimens to determine the accuracy of the identification. (1) I have to catch this snake; and (2) I know nothing about The reader also is left wondering if the dots represent speci- this species beyond its reputation as Africa’s deadliest serpent. mens from formal institutions with online metadata, personal I first spotted this elapid around 1400 h apparently sleeping collections unlikely to be shared openly, snakes that were in a tree well over 8 m above the ground (not quite terres- observed but not collected, or some other potentially unveri- trial) and it remained motionless in the branches of this large fiable source. With a work of this magnitude, it is unfortunate acacia for hours. I decided to wait until the evening for the that this important detail was omitted. Perhaps, an online snake to venture down to the ground to hunt (I assumed it companion should have been rolled out with this book so was nocturnal), at which time I would snag it with my tongs. that other researchers can leverage the locality data to better Ignorance, this time, was not bliss. Night came and the snake understand this region’s poorly documented ophidiofauna. never moved. After turning down my colleagues’ proposals to Source-material quibbles aside, the maps themselves are aes- shoot it or burn the tree, I decided to climb, headlamp and thetically pleasing, located near the species in the text, and tongs in tow. What ensued was a heart-pounding series of some broad habitat details are discernable. Interestingly, all of events: a timid ascent up the acacia, an intense grapple with the maps are the same size throughout the book, even when a 6-ft mamba high in the canopy, a rapid decent (I fell and only one dot represents a species (e.g., Figure 8.2) or when slammed my arm on a rock), a regathering, and an eventual more than 50 dots represent three species (e.g., Figure 10.62), capture of the snake in the tree’s lower branches. I quickly and this makes some maps appear ill-sized (mostly too large). double-bagged the mamba, tied the bags to a long stick, and Furthermore, the maps could have been more efficiently con- proudly walked down the mountain at midnight carrying my structed to remove unmappable space (e.g., maps show large bindle while smiling from ear to ear. I survived by sheer luck, swaths of ocean beyond the African continent) to give more but this story highlights how immensely useful basic natu- room for enlarging snake pictures and drawings. I also would ral history information can be in the field because catching a have preferred that the African reference maps with country Black Mamba in a tree during the dark of night has a much names (Figures 3.1 and 3.2) covered entire pages either in the lower probability of success than if done during the daytime. front or back of the book, rather than be limited to half a page But then again, it was a Black Mamba, so maybe not.
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The book is also a cache of obscure herpetological Those up to date with African snake systematics may be knowledge that may even be unfamiliar to herpetologists. To disappointed, as almost none of the changes published during behold the hemipenial length of shovel-snouted snakes (genus the last five years were included in the book (see Pauwels and Prosymna) — first described by the famous herpetologist Karl Brecko 2020), but almost everyone else will not even notice. Schmidt — via a modern rendering by Kate Jackson on page The book has many other great features not described above, 292 (Figure 11.77) is worth the price of admission. Prosymna including dichotomous keys and a dense literature-cited section. ambigua apparently has a hemipenis that was 10-mm longer The authors have truly set the bar high for African snake guides than its 48-mm tail (Schmidt 1923). During a 2015 expe- and this opus will endure as a useful reference for years to come. dition in the Karamoja Region of eastern Uganda, I flipped The price is likely prohibitive to those from the region it covers, a Prosymna from under a large rock in wooded-grassland but anyone with an interest in African snakes will be rewarded habitat. These snakes were so poorly known that I could not by investing in such a well-illustrated and scholarly guide. identify it to species at the time. After sequencing its DNA, it turned out to be most closely related to P. greigerti, a spe- Literature Cited cies that also occurs in the region covered by this book. After Dickey, C. 2018. The penis poster that rubbed people the wrong way. Topic seeing Jackson’s redrawing, I was immediately curious as to Magazine, Animalia No. 11.
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