Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book

  • Carl H. Ernst &
  • George R. Zug
Smithsonian Institution Press: 1997. Pp. 203 $49, £38.25)
Credit: ARDEA

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of snakes, including many of the most venomous, tend to be timid and retiring. Like Greta Garbo, they prefer to be left alone. By contrast, human beings find it difficult to leave snakes to their own devices. They arouse scientific curiosity and our aesthetic sense because many of them are so beautiful. In some people as well as certain wild animals, they engender a sense of fear. All these interests are catered for in these books.

In a chapter on folk tales, Carl Ernst and George Zug point out that no animal is the subject of so many myths and half-truths as is the snake, to which human beings attribute symbolic and erotic meanings. Snakes in Question sets out to answer the questions most frequently asked about snakes by both adults and children. It also offers insight into their basic biology and contains useful data such as the body sizes of selected species and their speed of locomotion. It may reassure some people to learn that no snake can move half as fast as a human being.

Kaleidoscopic Tree Boas: The Genus Corallus of Tropical America

  • Peter J. Stafford &
  • Robert W. Henderson
Krieger: 1996. Pp. 86. $28.50, £>26.50

Kaleidoscopic Tree Boas covers the natural history and captive management of the genus Corallus, a small group of highly-adapted tree-dwelling snakes whose striking appearance and often exhorbitant coloration are clearly illustrated in 53 plates. Keys to the four known species and diagnoses of their subspecies are provided in this useful little guide.

Coral Snakes of the Americas: Biology, Identification, and Venoms

  • Janis A. Roze
Krieger: 1996. Pp. 328. $95, £86.95

Far more ambitious and technical is the monographic treatment of the Coral Snakes of the Americas by Janis Roze. Not only are full descriptions of nearly 150 species and subspecies given, but maps of their distribution and variations are provided. Also included are chapters on morphology, ecology, feeding, food, cannibalism, reproduction, enemies and defence. There is a section on venoms and their effects, an extensive bibliography and detailed indexes.

The chapter on mimicry is especially interesting as it reviews the long-standing problems presented by false coral snakes and the ‘deadly model’ paradox. Mimicry relationships represent a wide array from strict batesian to extreme mullerian mimicry. Following Harry Greene and R. McDiarmed, the so-called ‘mertensian’ is regarded as a version of mullerian mimicry and not as a different category of mimicry.

Venomous Snakes: Ecology, Evolution and Snakebites

  • R. S. Thorpe,
  • W. Wüster &
  • Anita Malhorta
Oxford University Press: 1996. Pp. 276. £75, $145

Venomous Snakes is the latest volume of Symposia of the Zoological Society of London, and maintains the customary high standard of that series. The intention of the symposium's organizers was to bring together leading researchers on all aspects of venomous snake biology to discuss a wide range of topics and forge stronger links among themselves. The 18 chapters are authoritative, specialized and diverse. Their subjects range from the systematics of sea snakes and the DNA evolution of pit vipers of the genus Bothrops to a review of phospholipases in snake venom. The impact of molecular methods for the reconstruction of phylogenetics is apparent in six of the nine papers devoted to mainly taxonomic subjects.

Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature

  • Harry W. Greene
University of California Press: 1997. Pp. 351. $45, £35

For most herpetologists — and zoologists in general — the most interesting of these books will be Harry Greene's Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature. This is by no means a superficial account, as its title might suggest, but an extremely well-written and scientific introduction to the evolutionary biology of snakes, interwoven with folklore and original observations on their natural history, supported by a massive bibliography and index.

The hundreds of outstanding colour photographs by Michael and Patricia Fogden not only illustrate the various species but often show them in action — envenoming or swallowing their prey (which sometimes includes other snakes), fighting, mating, giving birth and hatching from eggs. Most of these photographs were taken in the wild, in 18 countries on six continents.

This is a book to read for interest and pleasure as well as for accurate and original scientific information.