Content area
Full text
Natural History of Neotropical Treeboas (Genus Corallus). R. W. Henderson. 2015. Edition Chimaira. ISBN 9783899734386. 338 p. euro68.00 (approximately $83.00) (hardcover).-While boas are familiar reptiles to both specialists and the general public, we know surprisingly little about the natural history of most species in the family Boidae (sensu Pyron et al., 2014). These often secretive and cryptic animals are difficult to study in the wild under most circumstances, exceptions being a few relatively dense populations that lend themselves to traditional ecological and biological study (e.g., Chandler and Toison, 1990; Reynolds and Gerber, 2012). In Saint-Exupéry's novella The Little Prince (1943), the narrator describes an early fascination with "boa constrictors," in particular, what they eat, be it rats or elephants, and the effect that such a meal would have on both the appearance and the behavior of the snake. That the topic was interesting is not in doubt, but the narrator subsequently used the drawing as a litmus test to gauge whether a stranger would be interested in things like "boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars." The implication, at least from my perspective, is that the narrator's drawing of a boa constrictor consuming an elephant, which was clearly a "hat" to the "grown-ups," was that the narrator lacked sufficient explanatory ability to demonstrate the interesting aspects of boa natural history, including potential prey items. Here, Henderson has done what Saint-Exupéry's narrator could not, which is to produce a work that captures both the fascination of the animal and its habits, packaging it into a form that is immediately recognizable as being "of consequence." Henderson has produced a fantastic work, a crown on a significant career working with these amazing snakes. For more than 26 years, Henderson has been studying and publishing papers on Neotropical treeboas (Corallus), transforming the group from enigmatic denizens of the canopy to a genus bursting with research potential and opportunity. Corallus, containing nine species, is widely distributed from Guatemala to the far southeastern coast of Brazil and north to the West Indian island of St. Vincent. Members of the genus are secretive, nocturnal, arboreal, and generally infrequently encountered. Nevertheless, Henderson has helped establish Corallus as a significant focus for our understating of boid behavior, natural history, and evolution. In doing so,...





