Firefly Encyclopedia of Vivarium (Alderton)

Well I finally gave in to the urgings of amazon.com and purchased "The Firefly Encyclopedia of the Vivarium - Keeping Amphibians, Reptiles, and Insects, Spiders and other Invertebrates in Terraria, Aquaterraria, and Aquaria" by David Alderton. I'll have to admit that I was hesitant at first because that is a lot of subject matter for a 224 page book. So far I have only skimmed through it but it is more or less what I expected. Lots of general information and some nice pics - although I noticed at least one that was mislabled. The author offers a nice representation of varous caudates although some of the information is somewhat inaccurate. For example, P. hongkongensis is listed as a "Paddle-Tailed Newt" with Hong Kong Warty newt listed underneath in parentheses. For the care of the above species he states "The water temperature should be heated up to 68 F (20 C) in summer - an undertank heating pad is helpful for this purpose". All of the invertebrates are lumped together in a few pages at the end of the book. My biggest compaint is that the title is misleading. I was hoping that most of the species covered would indeed be suitable for the average home naturalistic vivarium. Many species covered do not fall into this category such as larger boids, iguanas, tortoises, and turtles. Worth mentioning however is the fact that caudata.org is listed under recommended websites in the back. I think that it is worth the 25.00 that I paid but probably not the 40.00 cover price.
Chip

Boy, you got off cheap...My latest urging from Amazon in the herp dep't is
Herpetology (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)
by F. H. Pough (Author), Robin M. Andrews (Author), John E. Cadle (Author), Martha L. Crump (Author), Alan H. Savitsky (Author), Kentwood D. Wells (Author)

at a mere $114.

I moved this from the off-topic discussion to the on-topic discussion. Seems appropriate to me. Maybe we should have a subsection specifically for book reviews. Would there be enough content to make this viable?

Dawn,
It was part of a larger order but I still "only" spent about 112.00.

Jen,
I was not really sure where to post it and at the same time thinking that a book review section would be great. I know that there are not that many titles directly related to caudates when compared to other herps however there are many general works and field guides and so forth that feature salamanders.
Chip

I LOVE the idea of a book review section. Just because it might not get used a lot isn't important.

otterwoman said:

I LOVE the idea of a book review section. Just because it might not get used a lot isn't important.

Click to expand...

Likewise, I cant count the number of times I've purchased a herp related book either online or in a shop without looking through it first and found it to be complete ****!
It may not get used much, but could be a handy reference for other members if no one else.

I'd also love to see an 'off topic book review' section, I read a great deal and tend to demand one on any forum I join. For either fiction or non caudate related reference material. On any forum it says alot about people and can spark some interesting off topic discussions.

This sounds kosher.

OK, we have it! This thread is now in the Book Reviews subsection. Sorry to keep moving it, Chip.

I moved some other book related threads in there.