[Pet Health Admin]

Customer Review: An essential reference
For anyone interested in garter snakes, this book is the Holy Grail. Its chapters summarize a tremendous amount of work done on the genus, and make this book the one reference to consult first when doing any research on garters. It covers all thirty species, including many from Mexico and Central America for which data is limited and that I had never heard of before. I'm very pleased with it, and refer to it often. But bear in mind that this a scientific monograph. As monographs go it is surprisingly accessible, but it does not pull any scholarly punches, and some parts of it will be beyond some readers, particularly children. The species key, for example, refers to measurements that no amateur or casual observer would be able to make, but it does so in order to be correct rather than easy. That garter snake researchers need to own a copy of it goes without saying; amateurs with a serious interest in garters ought to buy it as well.
Customer Review: The only "must-have" snake book
There is far too much information in this book to be summarized in a review. Suffice it to say that the book is fascinating: the writing is clear, the conclusions sound, and the research extensive. For most other varieties of snake--other colubrids, boidae, vipers, even elapids--there is no shortage of books, and books covering even individual species are plentiful (think how many books are devoted exclusively to Boa constrictor ssp., for example). And while most of these books are worth reading once, the majority say little that all the others don't say, too. Garter snakes, however, seldom rate more than a paragraph or two in any snake book, and there are very few books devoted exclusively to garters (I can think of only one, offhand). This book, however, gives garters the attention--and gives the reader the information--that the species deserves. If one is a ratsnake enthusiast, or a python person, or mad about milksnakes, there are plenty of books worth reading, but few that are indispensable. If one is a breeder, researcher, or simply an interested layperson regarding garter snakes, however, this book is one that simply cannot be done without.


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