Saturday, April 21, 2007

Field guide to NY herps: Part II

Today, I'll offer my thoughts on the frog and turtle sections of Gibbs et al.'s wonderful new volume on the amphibians and reptiles of New York state. I was immediately impressed the natural history content of the frog section relative to the salamander section. For the frogs, we're offered much more specific information about how and when breeding occurs, for example: in the salamanders section, we're rarely told anything more than that breeding occurs in "early spring", but for the frog section this type of information is much more detailed (i.e., "Gray tree frogs appear after early spring rains and are active well into the autumn months. Breeding can be prolonged and extend up to 2 months, usually between mid-May and late July, later than other frogs in New York..."). More information is also offered regarding the conservation status of frogs than salamanders. Although these apparent shifts in detail could be due to the fact that frogs of NY are better known than the salamanders, I don't think this is the whole story. Perhaps different authors were responsible for these two sections and those writing the salamander section felt that the detailed information in the frog section was over-kill? Personally, I find the frog accounts much more helpful.

Sadly, other, more serious deficiencies of the salamander section are not remedied: the maps are still a bit vague and useful identifying information or photographs of tadpoles and egg masses are lacking.

I'll have to admit that I've mostly just skimmed the turtle section. Interesting facts aren't hard to come by in this section, often in the "Other Intriguing Facts" section found at the end of each species' account. For example, we're told of a violent encounter between eastern mud turtles and the impact of hikers on populations of wood turtles. Not many typos in this book so far, one of the first I've see is the addition of an extraneous comma on page 190: "It has been, introduced throughout New York..."

The final part of this review will be up tomorrow...

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