What do you think?
Rate this book
DK Eyewitness Books
Reptile
With more than twenty million copies sold in forty languages in ninety countries worldwide, DK Eyewitness been the most trusted young adult nonfiction book series for more than thirty years. Visually engaging, informative, and lively, the one-hundred-plus titles in the Eyewitness series focus on subjects that complement students' personal interests and areas of study to make learning simple and fun.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1960
4 people are currently reading
143 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 7, 2019
OK I know these are supposed to be kid books but they are awesome! Great pictures and just enough text to make you want to learn more. Great choices for a beginning reader or to start an older reader out in a new area. Every time I pick one of these up and read it I learn new things. Highly Recommended
October 2, 2021
It doesn't have the variety of images of different reptiles that the Reptileopedia has, but it is more focused on explaining how reptiles function and demonstrating it through it's images along side bits of text.
October 28, 2011
I read about dangerous reptiles. The pictures of the snakes and lizards scared Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Ocheltree and Mrs. Gilmore. Emilio
December 16, 2022
DK Eyewitness Books: Reptile by Colin McCarthy is a great book for young readers (its intended market) as well as adults. I doubt many adults already know everything in this book, and the lavish illustrations are a nice change of pace from the usual text-oriented adult fare. For example, this book makes a nice companion for adults to read alongside Reptiles: A Very Short Introduction, an excellent book that needs more illustrations. Best of all, if you fall behind in your Goodreads Reading Challenge, you can make up all the ground you need with titles in the DK Eyewitness series. (The fact that I'm writing this review in December is purely coincidental, I swear.)
My only slight complaint is that this book seems to have originally appeared in 1991 and might not have been substantially updated in its (apparently) several reprintings. For example, it doesn't mention climate change at all, which wasn't on too many people's radar back in 1991, but has since emerged as a leading additional cause of environmental destruction and species loss on top of all the usual burning and shooting and poaching and trapping and road-killing and bulldozing and polluting that humans were doing. So when the book mentions human threats to the remaining wild reptiles, it makes a rather glaring omission. Given that all the young readers of this book are heading into a lifetime of steadily increasing climate chaos, with every decade almost certainly worse than the previous one, the sooner they understand what their parents' fossil-fuel-burning generation is throwing them into, the better.
My only slight complaint is that this book seems to have originally appeared in 1991 and might not have been substantially updated in its (apparently) several reprintings. For example, it doesn't mention climate change at all, which wasn't on too many people's radar back in 1991, but has since emerged as a leading additional cause of environmental destruction and species loss on top of all the usual burning and shooting and poaching and trapping and road-killing and bulldozing and polluting that humans were doing. So when the book mentions human threats to the remaining wild reptiles, it makes a rather glaring omission. Given that all the young readers of this book are heading into a lifetime of steadily increasing climate chaos, with every decade almost certainly worse than the previous one, the sooner they understand what their parents' fossil-fuel-burning generation is throwing them into, the better.
February 23, 2024
This is a “new edition with wall chart” 2023 version of the “Reptile” book from the DK Eyewitness range of books. In it you can “uncover the lives of lizards, the tactics of tortoises, and the secrets of snakes”.
It starts with a section on What is a reptile / What is not a reptile which is a good place to start, differentiating amphibians from reptiles. It is very Interesting along the way, especially with the many high-quality colour photos that supplement the book, my favourite two photos being that of the world’s smallest known reptile, the nano-chameleon from Madagascar which is around 22mm and is shown on a person’s finger/thumb for context (although the photo is rather disappointedly repeated later in the book although the other photos do feature just once each I believe) and a photo of a “Florida worm lizard” which looks exactly like a worm.
As well as the photos there is plenty of textual content covering everything you’d expect and want. There are plenty of good facts within also, like “prehistoric turtles could be as big as a car”, and “the tip of the chameleon’s tongue accelerates up to five times faster than a fighter jet.”
Of course, it ends on a sobering note: “Over 20 per cent of reptiles are threatened with extinction. They face many threats, including hunting and habitat loss, which is especially harmful for reptiles who only live on certain islands and have nowhere else to go.” The book includes a photo of Lonesome George, the last ever Pinta Island tortoise to show at least one now extinct species.
Overall, a quality, educational and well-presented book. 5-stars.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
It starts with a section on What is a reptile / What is not a reptile which is a good place to start, differentiating amphibians from reptiles. It is very Interesting along the way, especially with the many high-quality colour photos that supplement the book, my favourite two photos being that of the world’s smallest known reptile, the nano-chameleon from Madagascar which is around 22mm and is shown on a person’s finger/thumb for context (although the photo is rather disappointedly repeated later in the book although the other photos do feature just once each I believe) and a photo of a “Florida worm lizard” which looks exactly like a worm.
As well as the photos there is plenty of textual content covering everything you’d expect and want. There are plenty of good facts within also, like “prehistoric turtles could be as big as a car”, and “the tip of the chameleon’s tongue accelerates up to five times faster than a fighter jet.”
Of course, it ends on a sobering note: “Over 20 per cent of reptiles are threatened with extinction. They face many threats, including hunting and habitat loss, which is especially harmful for reptiles who only live on certain islands and have nowhere else to go.” The book includes a photo of Lonesome George, the last ever Pinta Island tortoise to show at least one now extinct species.
Overall, a quality, educational and well-presented book. 5-stars.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
March 4, 2020
Stuff I learned: viviparous = (adj) giving birth to live young; plastron (bottom) and carapace (top) are the two parts of a turtle shell; Jacobson's Organ is an organ in snakes and lizards near the front of their mouth that "smells" and "tastes" chemical particles in the air; lizards' tails can only be broken off at the vertebrae - they can not be broken off over and over again in the same spot unless it is farther up the lizard's body; there are four orders of reptiles: turtles and tortoises, crocodiles and alligators, snakes and lizards, and tuataras (2 species found in New Zealand); "prehensile" means it can grasp - it is usually used to describe a tail (like a lizard or monkey); I wish there were more on venomous snakes.
January 20, 2021
40 - 2021
Setelah melihat foto-foto ilustrasi buku ini aku... mampir ke tokopedia dan membeli dompet kulit ular cobra asli.
Maaf ya, ul.
Setelah melihat foto-foto ilustrasi buku ini aku... mampir ke tokopedia dan membeli dompet kulit ular cobra asli.
Maaf ya, ul.
May 8, 2015
This book is full of colorful, real life pictures. It gives an in depth look at reptiles and educates students on their characteristics, history, behavior and habitats. The pictures themselves are so perfectly selected that even though this book has a vast amount of text, the reader could learn from the pictures alone, which is a great attribute to have for my ELL students. It includes bits of trivia, facts and fun information. The mix of facts and fun makes it intriguing and approachable for all readers.
June 2, 2015
If you love books about scaly wet creatures, check this book out because this book is about one of my favorite animals named reptiles. We get to see many of our reptilian friends and what they do on a regular basis.So if you want to know about the worlds most cold-blooded animals read this book.
Read
September 10, 2009J5974McC
October 30, 2011
a great resource for children, bold and striking pictures, and well researched information
March 13, 2012
A great book to use for informational reports, I found out many great facts on reptiles.
Read
April 8, 2014x3
September 16, 2015
it was awesome it tells you every thing you will ever need to know about some reptiles i give it a 10/10 one of the best books i have ever read
October 18, 2019
October 2019 - Ben and I browsed our way through this over several nights. He's really fascinated with lizards, especially.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews