New Book: Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species, is now available

Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. 2014. Van Wallach, Kenneth L. Williams, Jeff Boundy. CRC Press, Boca Rattan, FL. 1237 pp.

This volume  will be required reading for anyone seriously interested in snake systematics and diversity. It contains a checklist to all living and fossil snakes described between 1758 and 2012. These number 3,509 living and 274 extinct species allocated to 539 living and 112 extinct genera. Also included are 54 genera and 302 species that are dubious or invalid. Thus, book in recognizes 705 genera and 4,085 species.
The checklist is organized by genera with species alphabetically organized for ease of reference. The species accounts include: data on type specimens and type localities; a lists all subspecies, synonyms and proposed  names;  distribution of species by country and province, and geological time spans for fossil species; a complete summary of the systematic snake literature. It also provides a list of  references for each country. The literature cited  covers more than 200 pages.

In 2013 there were an additional 22 species of snakes described, and at least four new species have already been described in 2014. There have also been some major changes in higher level systematics within the past two years. Despite these updates, this is a indispensable volume for anyone working on snakes.