Firefly Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians

by Halliday, Tim

• ISBN13: 9781552976135
• ISBN10: 1552976130
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-09-01
• Publisher: Firefly Books Ltd

Summary

Combining authoritative, easy-to-read essays with exciting illustrations and color photographs, this comprehensive encyclopedia covers all the diverse families of reptiles and amphibians, from chameleons to turtles to tree frogs.Lively, in-depth articles are illustrated with accurate artworks and color photographs and each species listing has a Factfile of the essential data: Scientific Order and population Distribution (with a color-coded map) and Habitat Size and Color Reproduction and Life Cycle Longevity Conservation StatusScientists, zoologists and expert researchers have contributed specially commissioned articles. These specialists, all experts in their fields, are actively involved in conducting frontline scientific or behavioral research. The inclusion of their latest findings and interpretations sets this title apart.

Author Biography

Tim Halliday is Professor of Biology at the Open University, England, where he teaches animal behavior and evolutionary biology, and researches the mating dynamics of newts, frogs and toads. He has written or edited several books and numerous scientific papers about amphibian sexual behavior. In the last ten years, he has concentrated on global declines among amphibian populations. He is the International Director of the IUCN/SSC Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force.

Dr. Kraig Adler is Professor of Biology at Cornell University. His research includes animal orientation and navigation, and the systematics, ecology and evolution of amphibians and reptiles which he has studied in the field around the world. Dr. Adler's research is widely published and he has written or edited eight books, including co-authoring Herpetology of China (1993) and Captive Management and Conservation of Amphibians and Reptiles (1994). He served as President of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles and was elected the first Secretary-General of the World Congress of Herpetology.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 8
Amphibians	p. 10
Classification and Taxonomy	p. 20
A Key Amphibian Event	p. 22
Kaleidoscopic Adaptation	p. 24
Conscientious Parents	p. 26
Amphibian Population Decline	p. 30
Amphibian Conservation	p. 34
Swimming, Eating, Growing Machines	p. 36
Caecilians	p. 38
Salamanders and Newts	p. 42
Salamander and Newt Families	p. 56
Courtship and Mating in Salamanders and Newts	p. 60
Repellent Defenders	p. 62
Frogs and Toads	p. 64
Frog and Toad Families	p. 82
Leaps and Bounds	p. 88
Decoding the Frog Chorus	p. 92
From Tadpole to Frog	p. 96
Reptiles	p. 98
The Age of Reptiles	p. 106
Temperature Control in Reptiles	p. 108
Reptiles at Risk	p. 110
Play in Reptiles	p. 112
Pre-ejaculators, Sneakers, and She-males	p. 114
Temperature and Sex	p. 116
Turtles and Tortoises	p. 118
Turtle and Tortoise Families	p. 130
The Asian Turtle Crisis	p. 134
Leatherbacks: Birth on the Beach	p. 136
Lizards	p. 138
Natural Desert Dwellers	p. 148
Lizard Families	p. 170
Worm-lizards	p. 176
Snakes	p. 178
Venomous Snakes	p. 188
The Threat from Snakebites	p. 202
Snake Families	p. 204
Harvesting Snake Venom	p. 208
Tuatara	p. 210
Crocodilians	p. 212
Pollution and Hormone Mimics	p. 222
Unisexuality: The Redundant Male?	p. 224
Glossary	p. 226
Bibliography	p. 228
Index	p. 232
Picture and artwork credits	p. 240
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Preface Amphibans and reptiles were once seen as "lower forms" of life, and not just in popular misconceptions of the hierarchy of living things. Even the famous Swedish scientist Carl von Linne (Carolus Linnaeus) who, in the mid-1700s, established the system for naming species that is still in use today, is supposed to have held them in contempt: "These foul and loathsome animals .... thir Creator has not exerted his powers (to make) many of them." Happily, modern science takes a more enlightened view. Nowadays, the joint study of amphibians and reptiles continues as a single discipline (herpetology, from the Greek herpeton, meaning "crawling things"). Yet even this conjunction owes more to tradition, and to the fact that methods of collecting and keeping amphibians and reptiles have always been very similar, than it does to any fundamental similarity between them. Herpetologists have found that the differences between the two groups are often more striking than their similarities. They have also found that there is much about these animals to arouse fascination, and a great deal to learn from them about animal life in general. Apart from the way in which they maintain body temperature, and some other similarities such as having a single ventricle in the heart (birds and mammals have two), amphibians and reptiles differ markedly. Amphibians have a soft, smooth skin that is permeable to water; reptiles are covered in coarse, dry scales that are impervious. The eggs of amphibians lack a waterproof outer covering and are always laid in water or in damp places, whereas the reptilian egg has a thick, hard or parchment-like shell that holds moisture in, enabling the young to develop within it even on dry land. These differences reflect the significant position that each group occupies in the evolutionary history of the vertebrates. The amphibians made the transition from the totally aquatic life of fishes and evolved the ability to move about freely on land. The move involved a radical reorganization of the skeleton, particularly of the bones in the limbs, in comparison to that in the fins of fishes. It also involved an elaboration of the ability to breathe air, rather than dissolved oxygen, that had already evolved in their lungfish ancestors. The reptiles took the conquest of the land a stage further and, by acquiring an impermeable skin and an impermeable covering for the egg, became completely emancipated from standing water. In different ages, nature has, in fact, exerted its powers to make great many of these creatures, for early in their history both groups were a much more prominent feature of the Earth's faun, than they are today. For many millions of years the reptiles were the dominant form of life. Each, however, has become much less important in terms of numbers of species, so that today the amphibians, with about 5,000 species, are the second smallest vertebrate group, while the reptiles, at around 8,000 species, are themselves less numerous than either fishes or birds. Thanks to the present upsurge of interest in amphibians and reptiles among professional biologists, the science of herpetology is now making contributions to zoological knowledge that compare favorably in significance with those made in ornithology and mammalogy. Partly this is due to the realization that the traditional distinction between "higher" and "lower" vertebrates is no longer valid. Amphibians and reptiles are not degenerate or inferior in comparison to birds and mammals; they simply go about things in different ways and are, in many respects, just as successful. They are, for example, much more efficient in their use of energy and, because of various special features that they possess, are able to live in environments that are inaccessible to other groups. Most notably, reptiles are able to thrive in the driest deserts where birds and mammals cannot survive. Another factor in the