Content area
Full Text
A Field Guide to the Snakes of Borneo, by Robert B. Stuebing and Robert E Inger. 1999. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Sdn. Bhd., A913, 9th Floor, Wisma Merdeka, P.O. Box 13908, 88846 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. (e-mail: [email protected]). viii + 254 pp. RM 150 (approx. US$ 41.00), Hardcover; RM 120 (approx. US$ 33.00), Paperback. ISBN 983812-031-6 (Paperback); ISBN 983-812-038-3 (Hardcover).
This book is the companion volume to The Field Guide to the Frogs of Borneo, written by the same team of authors (Stuebing and Inger). Given the scarcity of literature on the herpetology of Southeast Asia in general, and on snakes in particular (there had been no update on the snake fauna of the island of Borneo since De Rooij, 1917), the present work will be a great help, not only to biologists (many of them local students, without access to literature, such as the work of De Rooij, which, after all, does not include color photos), but also tourists, conservationists, and local laypeople. Technically, this is a well-produced work, in both paperback and hardcover (with dust jacket) editions, in the usual high standards of printing that characterize publications of Natural History (Borneo) Publications Sdn. Bhd. (which, apart from the frog and snake books already mentioned, have also published an introductory text on the natural history of Sabah's herpetofauna, and a reprint of the 1966 monograph to the Bornean amphibian fauna by Inger).
The front cover photograph of the snake book shows a Trimeresurus popeorum, the back cover illustrates a Bungarus fasciatus. Separate chapters include an introduction, a checklist, general aspects of snake biology, including adaptations and ecology, conservation, the relationships between snakes and humans on Borneo (which includes a small section on snake bite treatment), a field key to the species (using, whenever possible, coloration and other external features), and the species accounts, each typically 1-2 pages long, rounding out with an appendix of vernacular names of snakes and a short list of references. Many species have been illustrated for the first time. The photographs were provided by a large number of local and foreign biologists; their quality ranges from average (understandable, given that it is notoriously difficult to take a good photograph of uncooperative, fastmoving, dark-colored snakes) to startling (e.g., Ahaetulla prasina swallowing...