The Bio-Ken Library 

Bio-Ken has very many reference books on African herpetology. They are all individually owned by Royjan Taylor, Sanda Ashe or Anthony Childs as well as many old books left to us by those who have gone before us such as C. J. P. Ionedes, Pitman, Loveridge and last but not least James Ashe himself.

We are now in our 27th year as an institution and have books going back to the earliest works in East African herpetology including many really old books containing, today, unobtainable literature such as the holy grail of East African snake books “A Guide to the Snakes of Uganda”, by Capt. Charles Pitman – Published by the Uganda Society, Kampala, Uganda in 1938, yes the one that was produced before the second world war and unfortunately they lost all the plate and picture templates during the bombing of London. We are sure that you will appreciate how rare these books are and the use of the really old one can only be done under supervision once you have persuaded one of us how carefully you will use them. The use of the data in them may be priceless towards research work you may be carrying out on African reptiles. 

Of course we also have all the field guides ever written on sub-Saharan snake fauna and the latest books on snakes, lizards and frogs as well as other text books on taxonomy, veterinary care, venoms and snakebite symptoms and treatment. We also have years and years of scientific papers written from all over the world on African reptiles. Most importantly are all the old ones which are not on the internet. 

Lastly if you would like our advice on the best book on African reptiles then you simply should get “A Field Guide to the Reptiles of East Africa” by Stephen Spawls, Robert C Drewes and James Ashe. It is the most comprehensive text book on the subject of East African Herpetology ever written it has 543 pages, 500 colour photographs and detailed distribution maps - ISBN-10: 0713668172.  They also recently produced an excellent pocket sized version called “Pocket Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of East Africa” - ISBN-10: 0713674253.   

For more info regarding the other facilities on offer at Bio-Ken keep browsing our web site or contact us.