Review by Carley Jones
The Complete Suboc was on my checklist of “The Complete” series by ECO Herpetological Publishing & Distribution. Before even cracking it open I was very excited to start reading just by the description on the back. This book promises to go in depth on all known color palettes/morphs as well as 25 specific localities of Trans-Pecos Rat Snake! Plus bonus chapters on the Baja, Western Green, and Bairds Rat snakes!
I dare to say this is one of if not my favorite book that I’ve had the pleasure of reading in “The Complete” series. This is partly because of my first love of rat snakes and colubrids in general, but also largely in part to Dusty Rhoads’ beautiful writing, organization, and outside sources that make up The Complete Suboc. I must say that this book can certainly hold its own despite being 12 years old. Some books are just timeless like that! I became conscious of checking the year of publishing a few years ago when I dove into a book that was relatively recent, but not new by any means. It was published in 2012 and in it the information written about our beloved herps and their husbandry was ATROCIOUS.
All us book lovers can forgive outdated information that sprinkles some of the titles in our library because the overall information is still pertinent today, or they’re just too nostalgic of a book to move them onto another home. In my humble opinion The Complete Suboc is well worth the price and I will be enjoying it for years and years.
Dusty Rhoads knocked it out of the park. There is a section on breeding by Dave and Tracy Barker and detailed chapters of the natural and captive history of subocs. There’s also a chapter on zoo enrichment (a buzzword these days depending on your audience) and one of my very favorite garnishes to all literature, a nice fat list of suggested reading! I hope my excitement shines through my review on The Complete Suboc. I truly loved this book. There’s a herping story at the end that is akin to the musings of Trumbower, and I think most of us patronizing this magazine have his titles on our bookshelves as well! Have a blast learning about these neat little snakes and enjoy looking into those endearing, charismatic, and some might say disturbingly enlarged eyeballs that people can’t help but become so infatuated with.
