Snakes – The Evolution of Mystery in Nature Paperback – 5 April 2000

Old anf torn book

This book describes itself in the introduction as being suitable for "laypeople", as it puts it, as well as those with a scientific interest in snakes. I'm not sure what category the author would put me in - I have A levels in biology and chemistry and am now studying animal behavioural science, as well as owning various reptiles including multiple snakes, but I certainly felt like a layperson reading this book. I am very interested in science, read the New Scientist and many books and articles on science, specifically biology which I'm most interested in, and I could not understand most of the scientific terminology in this book.Very specific and alien words (to most of us) were poorly explained and I found myself pausing at the end of sections to realise I'd gleaned virtually no knowledge from them.What I wanted from this book was to learn about the biology and evolution of snakes. Given its title and the claim in the intro that it was mostly concerned with biology, I expected to at least have a clear idea of what a snake would look like if it were split down the middle to reveal the organs and bone structure. I studied the few paragraphs on this most carefully and learned absolutely nothing new (and I don't know a great deal, hence wanting to read a book of this kind), perhaps mostly because the lack of a diagram. There are no diagrams in this book at all, and although the photographs are absolutely beautiful it could do with some drawings too. As mentioned below I learned nothing about their evolution because the section of phylogeny was very muddled.I will also second what other reviewers have said in terms of the poor organisation of the writing here. The section of phylogeny, another subject I was very keen to understand better, was written so confusedly that I'm still no wiser than I was before I picked it up. I just tried to think of ten things I'd learned from this book, and I have failed to come up with them. I did start reading with some knowledge already to be fair, but since I bought this book to expand on my knowledge I feel sorely let down. Most of what I learned was about the venom of snakes, which was only mildly interesting because I could only grasp the basics yet again.I'd recommend it to somebody with a very advanced understanding of anatomy and scientific terminology, but nobody else.

This book is not an encyclopediac treatment of snakes, but rather a natural history of some of the 2,700 species of snakes that are currently recognized. Eight chapters are devoted to general topics in snake biology, including anatomy, feeding, venoms (more snakes are venomous than we used to think), predation and defense, social behavior, reproduction, evolution, and conservation.The illustrations supplied by world-acclaimed nature photographers Michael and Patricia Fogden are absolutely gorgeous---snakes in every aspect of their dangerous, seductive charm, including my favorite of Peringuey's Adder in Namibia. This snake's tail protrudes above the sand as a lure, and if you look very closely at the picture, you might make out eyes and head scales that are almost completely invisible between the grains of sand. It is quite startling to be looking at a pile of sand and suddenly see the outline of an adder's head.The author, Harry W. Greene is Curator of Herpetology in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He opens each chapter in 'Snakes' with an essay that considers the subject from a more personal perspective: many of his fellow herpetologists have been bitten by venomous snakes, and some have died. The essays lead to Greene's epilogue and his answer to the question, "Why snakes?"This book is a fascinating read. I sat down to learn more about garter snakes when I came across several of these handsome reptiles that were just emerging from hibernation. I soon found myself rereading the whole book. There are fourteen references in the index to 'Thamnophis sirtalis' (the common garter snake) but they are scattered throughout the book in interesting chapters such as "Diet and Feeding." I didn't know garter snakes were semi-aquatic and dined mainly on other watery creatures such as frogs. They also form mating balls which may stay together for two or three days---one female and multiple males. They spend the winter together in hibernaculums--one hibernaculum in Ontario was found to have over 6,000 garter snakes!The author's favorite reptiles are the venomous snakes, their ability to cause damage measured in the number of mice that would die from the poison injected through a single bite. "Drop for toxic drop, the Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) wins hands down: a bite from this Australian cobra relative contains enough venom to kill two hundred thousand mice..." In the introductory essay, the author and some of his friends go scrambling through a Costa Rican rain forest, looking for the deadly Bushmaster (Crotalus mutus). They weren't bitten by the Bushmasters they found, just by "huge black ants with the most intensely painful and long-lasting sting of any hymenopteran."If you'd like to explore the beauty and seductive grace of these ancient reptiles against a detailed backdrop of their biology and natural history, I highly recommend that you read "Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature." I own the hard-bound version, and it is 315 pages of dense text and hypnotic photographs.

This book encompasses all of the main groups of snakes. There are absolutely amazing and beautiful photographs that illustrate the diversity of snakes. The writing is clear and understandable to a novice, but at the same time is very informative. The book is broken into sections: General snake biology, Snake Taxonomy, Venomous snakes, and Conservation. I highly recommend this book--even just flipping through and glancing at the pictures make a person excited about herpetology!

The best book on snakes ever written. It is somewhat technical but you can easily move past that.

One of the finest herp themed books ever written. A must own.