Title: A Complete Guide to the Frogs of Southern Africa
Authors: Louis du Preez and Vincent Carruthers
Publisher: Struik Nature, Cape Town, South Africa
Date: 2009
488 pages, softcover with plastic protective cover
$26.00 from amazon.com
Audio CD included

If you are interested in the frogs and toads of southern Africa, you will fall in love with this book. It is written in field guide style but has much more. There are sections covering identification and taxonomy, morphology and physiology, and reproduction and vocalization. There are extensive field keys for both adults and tadpoles that help you to easily identify each species.

Thumbing through the species description section, you are greeted with a wealth of information that will blow your mind. Each entry contains the common name, scientific name, the meaning of the scientific name, range map and photos of both adult frogs and their tadpoles, as well as a complete narrative. The key ID points "box" is especially helpful because it identifies the key differences among the various species within the genus.

The book covers the frogs and toads native to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and southern Mozambique. There are also spectrograms (sonograms) and an audio CD (MP3 format) with the calls of all 146 species.

The authors of the book are top notch in their field. Vincent Carruthers is a respected South African environmentalist and authored or co-authored several books on this subject - including Frogs and Frogging in Southern Africa and South African Frogs (with Neville Passmore). Louis du Preez is a professor of zoology at North-West University and heads the African Amphibian Conservation research group.

I found this book extremely helpful in knowing more about the frogs and toads of southern Africa. It is very easy to read and doesn't require that you have degree in biology to appreciate what it has to offer. I have purchased several books on African amphibians, many costing more then twice the price of this book, yet none of them are as thorough and comprehensive as A Complete Guide to the Frogs of Southern Africa. If you had to choose one book on African frogs, this would be the one!