Amphibians and reptiles have assumed a central role in research because of the diversity of ecological, physiological, morphological, behavioral, and evolutionary patterns they exhibit. The fourth edition of the textbook Herpetology covers the basic biology of these fascinating animals with updates in nearly every conceptual area. Herpetology not only serves as a solid foundation for modern herpetology courses, but is also relevant to courses in ecology, behavior, evolution, systematics, and morphology. Examples taken from amphibians and reptiles throughout the world make this book useful as a herpetology textbook in several countries. Naturalists, amateur herpetologists, herpetoculturists, zoo professionals, and many others will find this book readable and full of relevant natural history and distributional information. Much research in the past few years has been done in squamates (lizards and snakes), particularly with regard to their taxonomy. This fully revised edition brings the latest research to the reader and keeps current with a quickly moving field, including the addtion of many new photographs from the authors" own massive image library. Heavily revised and updated with fully updated discussion of squamate taxonomy and new content reflected in current literature Includes more focus on conservation biology in herpetology while retaining solid content on organismal biology of reptiles and amphibians Presents new photos included from authors" extensive library