Jewels of the Rainforest -
Poison Frogs
of the family Dendrobatidae
Peter Mudde
Author: Jerry Walls
Publisher: TFH
ISBN: 0-7938-0299-7
Price: £49.95
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This
well-known book has received criticism since its publication, some of
which seems to be well founded largely due to errors.
I know how most of the errors came into being. The
book has a very large Dutch influence. That is to say, most of the
pictures are supplied by Arend van den Nieuwenhuizen, who made the
pictures from animals imported by the late Herman Oostveen, a Dutch
importer who had a considerable knowledge of herpetofauna, but made his
mistakes.
A very brief, initial - but by no means exhaustive -
run-through would pick out the following as being particularly noteworthy. |
Page 25
The frog shown is not a Dendrobatid, but Lithodytes lineatus.
Page 27
This looks much more like a juvenile Colostethus.
Page 174
The D. galactonotus looks very strange, but at the time the book
was published very little was known about these frogs.
Page 227
The painting represents a more or less common type of E. boulengeri
alright, but the photograph is a Colostethus species, most probably C.
whymperi
Page 230
There is Lithodytes lineatus again.
Page 236
This is not an E. parvulus but a half-grown juvenile of E.
bilinguis.
Page 249
The frogs are Colostethus.
Page 268
The frog middle row, right has its nose eaten away by some
infection. This picture should not have been printed without some comment.
Page 280
This little frog is now known as D. vincentei.
The Appendix
A different PDF classification stirs up unwanted discussion.
