Description

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Describing 102 species of salamanders occurring in the southeastern United States, ecologists Joe Mitchell and Whit Gibbons provide us with the most comprehensive and authoritative, yet accessible and fun-to-read, guide to these often secretive, always fascinating wonders of nature.

Mitchell and Gibbons enumerate the distinguishing characteristics of salamanders, including how they are different from other amphibians and from reptiles, especially lizards. Also discussed are distribution, habitat, behavior and activity, reproduction, food and feeding, predators and defense, conservation, and taxonomy. Accompanying each account are photographs illustrating typical adults and variations and distribution maps for the Southeast and the United States.

Given that 17 percent of the world's species of salamanders live in the Southeast and the scientific and popular concern for the worldwide decline in amphibian populations in general, Salamanders of the Southeast will appeal to people of all ages and levels of knowledge interested in natural history and conservation. The guide will help foster the growing interest in salamanders as well as cultivate a desire to protect and conserve these fascinating amphibians and their habitats.

Features:
Conservation-oriented approach
More than 400 color photographs
77 distribution maps
Clear descriptions and photographs of each species
Sections on biology, worldwide diversity, identification, taxonomy, habitats, and conservation
Did You Know?" sidebars of interesting facts

About the Author

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Whit Gibbons (Author) WHIT GIBBONS is a professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Georgia and author or coauthor of several books on herpetology and ecology, including Keeping All the Pieces, Snakes of the Southeast, Revised Edition, Frogs and Toads of the Southeast, Lizards and Crocodiles of the Southeast, Turtles of the Southeast, and Salamanders of the Southeast (all Georgia). Joe Mitchell (Author) JOE MITCHELL (1948-2019) was a herpetology research associate at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida and author/co-author of numerous books including Reptiles of Virginia (Smithsonian) and Atlas of Amphibians and Reptiles in Virginia (VA Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries), as well as approximately 500 papers on turtles, snakes, and conservation.

Praise For…

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“The authors suggest a number of ways in which landowners can manage their properties from the perspective of salamander habitat, including resources to guide in restoration of degraded areas. . . . [T]he authors have presented a perfect circle of argument within the book’s covers: salamanders are in trouble. . . and this is what you can do to help them out of trouble.”—Jeff Boundy, Herpetological Review