Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Pocket Guide

Costa Rica is blessed with an abundance of reptiles and amphibians and by having the book 'The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two Continents, between Two Seas' by J Savage, which is a massive tome of information containing everything about all of these animals. Sadly, its a huge book and very text-heavy and rather dry and unreadable. I spent a year working in the rainforest of Costa Rica and I'm a professional biologist, and I made heavy use of Savage to identify all of the species I found. But I often thought that there was a huge gap in the market for a lighter, field-guide type book that could condense all of the relevant information and focus on the diagnostic features (particularly on the difficult to identify species groups).When I saw this book I thought that maybe this was what I had been hoping for and given that it is very reasonably prices and I am planning a holiday to Costa Rica again soon, I thought I would give it a look.Well its a bit of a let down quite honestly.Its biggest selling point is that is does feature ALL species of reptile and amphibian and the taxonomy is very up-to-date. Its also small and easily able to fit into a pocket or rucksack for field use.But each entry is so short (fitting about 3 or 4 species per page in quite a small book) and text is kept to a bare minimum, that I think it will often be quite difficult to be certain of an ID. Particularly with similar species groups such as parrotsnakes, Smilisca frogs and salamanders. There is a good photo for most species but again with the variability in some species, this is simply not enough (I know for a fact that the Birdsnakes we saw in Tortuguero looked very different to the variation pictured in this book). Another example is of two of the species of Eyelash Palm Pitviper. They are extremely similar and both have variable colour morphs and their text box is virtually identical. Their ranges overlap so I don't know how you would be able to differentiate them using this book.So to summarise, this book is probably worth a look, given its price and portability. But if you are serious about your 'herping' then you will probably need to refer to Savage for those tricky diagnostics.

This is a real nice pocket field guide to the herpetofauna of Costa Rica. It's rather concise and easy to carry. It does lack some photos and it would be rather interesting if it had more information about each species; But that would have rendered it much less friendly to carry and we must also bear in mind how rare and unknown some of those species are. Yet another plus is that it still contains heaps of very clear photos of nearly every species it refers instead of mere drawings, and that is a rare quality in field guides.

Small, simple, pocket sized field guide. Well illustrated and just enough information to be useful. Good value at £5 plus postage.

Superb little book, easy to carry with you.

The perfect pocket guide with generally excellent photographs. Not comprehensive but very useful for initial identifications.