Product Description

The first ever comprehensive guide to the amphibians and reptiles of Costa Rica. This book contains descriptions of the majority of the country's species. In addition to 86 color pages and 100 black and white plates, also included is a complete species list, an illustrated glossary and an exhaustive bibliography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279864 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 305 pages

About the Author
Twan Leenders, a naturalist, biologist, and nature photographer, graduated from the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, before embarking of many years of field investigation and research in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing field guide
What I liked best about this book was the detailed descriptions offered in such a compact book. It is far more managable than Savage's book.

However as a 'field guide' I found this book really lacking. The photographs are often dark and taken very nonprofessionally. Also has a poor index. Poor-lighting, not using polarizer filters on wet turtle shots, poor presentation of the specimens encountered all really hurt this guide.
Further it seems very incomplete. It seems several of herps I saw on my trip through were not included in at least the photographic portions of this book making it rather weak for field work. I actually carried along a little foldout frog/toad panflet that seemed to be more generally useful.

Still for the size and the text it certainly is worth including in your natural history guide books if you go to Costa Rica.

Will probably be the standard field guide to Costa Rican herps for years to come
This is far and away the best field guide to Costa Rican amphibians and reptiles. At 305 pages long it provides photographs, line drawings and description for most of the country's 400+ species strong herpetofauna. Most of the species not covered are those that require laboratory conditions (e.g. dissection) for unequivocal identification. For those wanting a complete treatment, Jay Savage's "Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica" (available on Amazon, ISBN: 0226735370) is marvelous but not meant for the field. So, when all's said and done, this is the handy guide that all naturalists will want to take on a trip to Costa Rica. To that end, the book is a nice size (8 x 5"), is printed on quality paper and is fairly well bound, though the covers are flimsy. Information is clearly presented and (apart from the 86 central color plates) helpful illustrations are sprinkled throughout the text. Useful introductions are provided to orders and families. Surprisingly there are no maps - they would have been an additional identification aid. Nevertheless, this is an essential field guide and well worth the price.

Handy Field Guide, Readable Book.
I used this book as a field guide in costa rica and found it to be on par with what I expect of a field guide. Good pictures, decent descriptions and a fair amount of general information. With the wealth of Herpofauna in Costa Rica a book of this small size can not go indepth as I would like, but the size makes it easy to take on a trip and a good read for anyone just getting there feet wet in costa rican reptiles.

However if you want the full and complete story of these amazing animals then check out Jay Savage's book on Costa Rican reptiles. To big to take on trips, but to great to pass up.