Venomous snakes of Costa Rica and Panama

[Paul Lambourne]

For those of you interested in such things:

I have just acquired the new guide to "the venomous snakes and their mimics, of Costa Rica and Panama" by Ray and Knight. Published by team snake Panama.

This is a field guide rather than a study of the species, 282 pages, with hundreds of colour photos and illustrations. All species have distribution maps and basic notes on habitat, description etc.

Each species is looked at in conjunction with the snakes that individually mimic them and could be confused in a field herping situation.

In my humble opinion, it is a useful guide for anyone travelling to this part of the world, or just someone like me that loves books on herps.. its inexpensive at £18 and there are a lot of species and habitat photos. The illustrations are well done, particularly the different coral snakes and their mimics. My only real criticism is the print quality of some of the photos could be better.

Costa Rica remains very much on my radar, however I have to get my ridiculously small Euro tick list up to scratch, visit Tanzania and RSA first.. roll on the lottery win..

Cheers

Paul

[Bastien Comment]

Interesting, thanks for your feedback. The day I'll prepare a trip to Costa Rica, I'll know at least one useful book especially as I'm not a scientist and therefore appreciate when it has lots of pictures

[Matthieu Berroneau]

You have to consider "The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two Continents, between Two Seas" of J. Savage.
Not expensive and extremly complete !
But maybe too big for a backpack .
Costa Rica is a really great country for herping, that I can only advise.
Here is a summary of a my trip there (not really for herping but...) :
http://www.herpetofocus.fr/out-of-europ ... -rica-1070
Regards
Matt