This definitive "must have" book has hundreds of pages, colour photos, etc as well as line drawings, maps, etc. It is used a reference by most Australian libraries, universities and other relevant institutions. If you have an interest in Australian fauna then you cannot afford not to have this book. You have to read the authoritative text and see the photos to believe it!!! BELOW is a copy of a previously published review of this book. All other reviews were similar in form.

School teachers, students and those who have had reptile parties® can now obtain for free for private use, full pdf page proofs (120 mb each file) of two definitive Australian wildlife texts by clicking the relevant text below.

Click on the linked text to download the full text of the book Australian Reptiles and Frogs.

Click on the linked text to download the full text of the book Endangered Animals of Australia.

Schools that have Snakebusters®, Melbourne Reptile Shows®, for incursions or families that have Reptile Parties® are advised to make use of the accurate information in these books after the visit to get the full benefit of experiencing Australia's only hands on reptile shows®.

This definitive book by the Snakeman Ray Hoser was a smash hit when it came out in 1991 and sold out quickly. At the time it sold for about $50 (Australian). It is now available on CD-rom, whereby you can read the entire page proofs as Acrobat Files and/or MS Word or even html.
This exceptionally high quality CD-Rom also contains a vast number of other definitive and otherwise hard to get Australian wildlife publications including the book, Australian Reptiles and Frogs, also by Raymond Hoser, over 100 major wildlife papers and articles by a number of authors and more.
To find out more about this amazing CD-rom:

BOOK REVIEW
ENDANGERED ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA
by Raymond T Hoser ($39.95).

This is an Australian written book covering not only mammals but birds, fish and reptiles. As most aviculturists are interested in Australian wildlife I felt this book was worth a look at. The book has 240 pages packed with coloured photographs which have been collected from some of our growing bank of photographers here in Australia. The author has spent the last 24 years in Australia. It didn't take him long to fall in love with its wildlife and the fear for their future and to realise we were going to have problems from introduced species such as the Cane Toad and feral animals. This is not a banner waving type book, but one that you can sit and read and get another view on what is happening to these animals.

The forward is written by Ian McLachlan MP Canberra. I am sorry this is too long to print in our review but I found this page to contain some interesting facts that I would have to agree with as we look towards the future.

The books contents start with chapters dealing separately with each form of habitat destruction such as Logging, Woodchipping, Grazing etc. There is also a chapter on the effects of introduced species and the disease factor. Commercial exploitation, hunting and pest extermination followed by conservation, research, captive breeding and the future. This may have put you off the book by now, but believe you me all these chapters I found very interesting and in many cases the points raised hadn't even crossed my mind.

From page 51 right through to the end of the book there is a page or more on each endangered species with a photograph. The text contains information on size, identification, causes of endangered status, numbers left and principal action required. A couple of interesting points amongst the birds was one in the section on the Gouldian. For some time research has been carried out on this bird by Sonia Tideman and others. Their findings have been that 66% of dead birds found had air sac and lung parasitic mite which has caused a decline of numbers in the wild. This reminded me of an interesting conversation I had some years ago with a wonderful old bird man, Ernie Hargreaves, who sadly died some months ago. Ernie a Taronga Park Zoo Keeper many years ago. We were talking about the Gouldian Finch and how the numbers had fallen over the years in the wild. He said we were lucky there was any left at all as the Zoo at that time had trapped and sent hundreds to Selfridges in England to be traded in for some Giraffes.

The other two interesting birds discussed are the Golden-shouldered and Hooded Parrots. From my experiences in Australian Customs I always found that the Golden-shouldered and Hoodeds that were illegally going out of the country, were aviary bred and not trapped. These birds were nearly always the ones used as payment for birds illegally coming into the country. It was much more viable to breed these birds rather than trap them and also the overseas breeder is always afraid of diseases brought in from wild caught birds let alone the extra effort required to breed from them.

I found this book not only to be interesting but true value for money and certainly worth getting for the whole family to read. Everyone is interested in wildlife to some extent but our budding future generation should be encouraged to read and learn as much as possible for their and their childrens' sake.

Michael Schooley

Click here to view the contents of this definitive work.

Raymond Hoser, better known globally as The Snake Man, has been an active herpetologist for more than 40 years and published over 200 scientific papers and articles in journals worldwide. He has disovered and named hundreds of species and genera of wildlife from all continents and major landmasses, except Antarctica. Hoser has also written nine major books including the definitive works "Australian Reptiles and Frogs", "Endangered Animals of Australia" and the controversial best sellers "Smuggled:The Underground Trade in Australia's Wildlife and Smuggled-2:Wildlife Trafficking, Crime and Corruption in Australia and made major contributions to many others.".