The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two Continents, between Two Seas
Abstract
The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two Continents, between Two Seas. Jay M. Savage. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002, xx + 934 pp. (cloth, ISBN 0-226-73537-0). Prior to starting graduate school (1966–7), I worked as a curatorial assistant in the Herp Lab of Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley. My first challenge was to identify and catalog a collection of herps from Costa Rica. Having to rely on E. H. Taylor's monographs, I found the challenge traumatizing. The keys were sometimes confusing (at least to a neophyte herper), no photographs helped me evaluate my tentative identifications, and the paucity of ecological data depersonalized the species accounts. From 2002 on, neophyte curatorial assistants (or even well-traveled Ph.Ds.) facing a similar challenge will have breath-taking experience when they heft and open Jay Savage's monumental opus on Costa Rican herps. Here in one huge (934 pages, >3 kg) and beautifully edited book are in-depth treatments of the 396 species of herps that occur in Costa Rica. Here are dichotomous keys (with notes on coloration in life and in preservative!), locality maps for each species in Costa Rica, line diagrams of diagnostic morphological characteristics, detailed morphological descriptions and comparisons with similar species, as well as useful notes on habitat, general biology, and even distributions beyond Costa Rica. Obviously, Savage knows these herps! Included also are chapters on being a…
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