American snakes
By: Sean P. Graham ; foreword by Rick Shine
Contributors: Shine, Richard, writer of foreword
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 293
ISBN-13: 9781421423593
Subjects: Snakes
Description: 125 million years ago on the floodplains of North America, a burrowing lizard started down the long evolutionary path of shedding its limbs. The 60-plus species of snakes found in Sean P. Graham's American Snakes have this ancestral journey to thank for their ubiquity, diversity, and beauty. Although many people fear them, snakes are as much a part of America's rich natural heritage as redwoods, bald eagles, and grizzly bears. Neither a typical field guide nor an exhaustive reference, American Snakes is instead a fascinating study of the suborder Serpentes. Brimming with intriguing and unusual stories- of hognose snakes that roll over and play dead, blindsnakes with tiny vestigial lungs, rainbow-hued dipsadines, and wave-surfing sea-snakes- the text is interspersed with scores of gorgeous full-color images of snakes, from the scary to the sublime.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Introduction; title: 2. Form and function; title: 3. A day in the life of a snake; title: 4. A year in the life of a snake; title: 5. Snake sex; title: 6. Snake food; title: 7. Snake eaters; title: 8. Snake defenses; title: 9. Dangerous snakes; title: 10. Snake invaders; title: 11. Snake conservation; title: Epilogue.