Rainforest Frogs of the Wet Tropics north-east Australia
By Conrad Hoskin & Jean-Marc Hero – (2008)
96 pages; gloss art paper, with 119 colour photographs (including front & back covers), 2 colour maps, 1 diagnostic photographic illustration & 1 checklist table.
Soft Cover: 21cm x 14.8cm
ISBN: 978-1-921291-36-4
Griffith University Gold Coast, Australia.
This great little book concentrates on the frog species from a small area of north east Queensland between Townsville and Cooktown some 450km long x 85km wide/inland from the coast. All up this includes 33 species, some of which have a distribution wider than the designated study area.
After the rather informative introduction there is a marvelous key to the species accompanied by excellent close up photos of the specific characters separating closely related species. In the individual species descriptions all species have a minimum of 2 photos some have 3 or 4. The text data covers a physical description, status and distribution, a description of each species call/song, habitats and habits, breeding and larvae and finally any miscellaneous notes. These descriptions are additionally enhanced with a glossary of technical terms at the back of the book and a good listing of literature references and a checklist of species set out in a table format. After the glossary and checklist there 6 pages set out for making field notes of species observed which is followed by a full page colour photo of Mixophyes coggeri (the last page of the book) which is perhaps otherwise lost as its presence in the book is not mentioned elsewhere.
This is a very handy and informative book which contains some very nice photos and I can certainly recommend it without hesitation and there is no doubt this neat little book should be on the library book shelves of all environmental and science departments, high schools, naturalists and frog devotees. Further, all proceeds from the sale of this book go back into frog research.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books