My Review
I put a rush on it; so it could be more polished, and I had no time to think of any Harry Potter jokes.
Newts and Salamanders: A Complete Guide to Caudata (TFH Publications, 2009) by Devin Edmonds, 128 pp.
There has not been a new care guide for a while, and this book was eagerly anticipated. In short, it is a good book, full of nice pictures, with some excellent chapters and some adequate chapters. Edmond’s information is current and it’s clear that he is enthusiastic about the hobby and cares deeply about the subject.
The book is full of pictures and sidebars to keep you visually entertained, and the pictures are not recycled from previous TFH books.
The print is small enough to pack a lot of information in.
There are ten chapters; chapter 1 is an introduction to salamanders and newts, their taxonomy, general biology, habits, ecology (including habitat destruction and chytrid fungus), and acquisition. It is a well-done introduction, and balances the needs of reader interest and presentation of facts.
He advocates the two best ways of acquiring a herp, with which I believe we would all agree- without going into a debate, he guides the reader to either self-collection or purchasing from a captive breeder.
At least three times during the book he warns against introducing pathogens into the environment by never releasing captives back into the wild, even to the same area you might have originally acquired them.
Chapter two is an interesting and insightful discussion of housing. This is a very helpful chapter with good pictures; he discusses the wide range of conditions necessary for different species, aggression among newts, and spends a lot of time on relevant water quality issues. I liked his vinegar test for determining if a rock is safe for your aquarium: a few drops on a rock will sizzle if the rock is unsafe (p. 24).
After I read this chapter on housing, I thought, “Whoa, Indiviglio has a challenge to the supremacy of his
Newts and Salamanders on his hands.” When I finished chapters 3-5, though, I thought, “No, he doesn’t, after all.” Housing is the best chapter in the book and really impressed me, but the following chapters on food, breeding, and health did not match that breadth of subject treatment.
Indiviglio’s is still the definitive short book on caudate care, in my opinion, for its consistent excellence through
all the chapters.
The chapter on foods (chapter 3) is adequate, but I think he could have said a bit more about earthworms, their virtues, cutting them up, and the various kinds.
He mentions mealworms, but not about nipping their heads off. Nor did he mention springtails or whiteworms, and bloodworms just in passing in this chapter. Springtails are never even mentioned until the chapter on Plethodontids. It would have been more organized and helpful to mention all the foods in the food chapter and discuss them by size rather than sprinkle food nuggets throughout the book, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a whole chapter on foods. Then when a specific type of food is mentioned, though appropriate for the animals in the chapters in which they occur, the information could more easily be applied to other species.
In chapter 4 (breeding), he talks about the many variables that come into play (temperature, light, moisture, migration). Here, he mentions whiteworms and states that are labor intensive to culture; I have found them among the easiest live foods I have tried to raise.
Health care (chapter 5) contains general, common sense information, and focuses on how things can happen rather than what to do about them (except for taking them to vet, in most instances).
Chapter 6 is a whole chapter dedicated to
Cynops. He includes
orientalis,
pyrhrogaster,
cyanurus, and
ensicauda; I liked seeing them get their due with a chapter of their own. Five pages packed with information on their requirements, breeding, and raising the results.
Chapter 7 is reserved for
Ambystoma. He selects five species to focus on (tiger, eastern tiger, spotted, marbled, and axolotl). He might have just done one of the tigers in exchange for a blue-spotted or something, but hey, everyone’s got to be a critic, eh? This chapter has a cool picture of an albino, and also of a “melantistic” [sic],
maculatum.
Considering many books that have a whole chapter just on axies, it seemed odd to devote only 1/3 of a page exclusively to them, while having a whole chapter on
Salamandra salamandra.
I liked the chapter on Plethodontids (ch 8) very much; it was comprehensive like the chapter on housing. His best chapters are on housing,
Plethodontidae, and the following chapter on Fire Salamanders. My theory is that these are his three main interests. I guess I’ll never know if I’m right; since this isn’t the most effusive review, I don’t see him ever striking up a correspondence with me to set my curiosities at ease.
After reading the chapter on fire salamanders, I wanted to run out and get some, his enthusiasm is contagious. Again, he recommends captive bred over wild caught, both of which are available in the US pet trade.
In chapter 10 he treats the rest of the bookworthy commonly kept species: alpine newts, eastern newts, paddletail newts, warty newts, ribbed newts, rough-skinned newts, crested newts, marbled newts, crocodile newts (I love to type that word “newts”), and amphiumas. Personally I find
Tylototriton and the many crested newts as worthy of their own chapter as fire salamanders would be, but the book’s strengths are clearly the author’s interests, which is a truism for life in general as well as newt and salamander books.
There are a few typos in the book; a few missed punctuation marks and “melantistic” for “melanistic” (as mentioned above); my favorite one is the back cover blurb, which does a nice job extolling the virtues of keeping newts and sals as well as plugging the book itself—until the amusing typo in the last sentence:
“
Newts and Salamanders will help you keep your frog healthy for all of his life.”
Hey, I’m an avid recycler too.
Finally, the documentation: two full pages of references and resources.
Our own Jennifer Macke and her caudata culture site is not only a reference, but is also mentioned along with
caudata.org and
axolotl.org as resources. Several other websites are there as well. This is followed by a three page index.
The index was the tiniest print ever! Five more years and I’ll need a magnifying glass to read it; as it is, I had to remove my glasses and hold it up to my nose. Now you know how old I am.
The small size of the index print isn't really a criticism, just an opportunity for me to make fun of myself.
On the whole, I think Indiviglio’s book is still superior. However, this book is the same size as Indiviglio’s book, shares a title, and if you like to have more than one book on salamanders, will fit nicely on your shelf right next to his. It is a good resource and well worth reading.
