Library of Congress Card Number 00192924.  ISBN  0-9705561-0-1

"A bushmaster opus.... thoroughly investigated... I am impressed by his incredible experiences with these snakes, successes with captive husbandry, attention to detail, and beautiful photographs... A labor of love... I am glad he has published this material." Jonathan A. Campbell, co-author of The Venomous Reptiles of Latin America

"Not only the best single work on bushmasters, it's one of the best works I've read on any snake. . . What Klauber was to rattlesnakes, Dean Ripa is to bushmasters . . . [He has] altered forever our preconceptions about this most fascinating of dangerous snakes. . . Especially intriguing is how the author correlates the bushmaster's particularized morphology with all aspects of its behavior, from feeding habits to choice of breeding partners, and in the process, refutes half a dozen other scientists before him.  Ripa's own four bushmaster bites are described in detail—and they are simply horrifying."   Trevor Wyman 

"Everything you could ever want to know about the bushmaster, with enough new data to keep herpetologists jumping for years to come . . . This is the defining study, and the one all future historians will have to answer to when they begin arguing about what bushmasters are and do. . .  A work of such breadth and with so much first hand and new-to-print information, that it can probably never be repeated . . . Where else are you going to find an eloquent writer who has not only spent years hunting these rare animals all over Central and South America, who has reproduced them in captivity by the hundreds, and who has been bitten by them an astounding four times into the bargain?"  Blair Mitchell, Jr. 

"One does not have to accept all of Ripa's ideas uncritically to realize that this is the deepest any human has peered into the lives, ways, shapes and forms of Lachesis muta and company.  Even the information on Bothrops is quite revolutionary, and can be found nowhere else.  I recommend this book."   Frank Shaw

"The next best thing to spending years in rainforests, museums, zoos, and hospital recovery rooms dying from bushmaster bite . . . The text is fascinating and adventurous, ignited by an unconventional spark.  The world's largest pitviper proves to be even stranger than herpetology thought.  Ripa's contribution to our knowledge of these snakes is an important one.  The photos are wonderful, providing us a look at bushmasters never seen before."  Allen Spears. 

"A thorough and immensely readable scientific investigation into a rarely treated subject matter. . . Till now learning about bushmasters has been mostly a haphazard process of hunting up short and inconclusive passages found in other books . . . Now, it's all here in one package.  The CD-Rom format works great, something I was at first a little leery of, liking the 'feel' of conventional books, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to navigate.  With a simple 'click' the photos can be enlarged so that you can even make accurate scale counts!"  Larry Kozinsky

Now available in a hardcover edition!

We are offering the definitive guide to the world's largest pitviper, the bushmaster.  By far the most complete study extant of these gigantic pitvipers, it includes over 440 pages of never before published information and 437photos covering nearly every aspect of bushmaster morphology and behavior.

An intensive look of bushmaster life habits, unique mating rituals, reproduction, combat, feeding tactics and the influence of these behaviors on bushmaster morphology, this book contains also a literal re-writing of the systematics of the genus.  There are chapters on bushmaster bite, with a detailed reviews of the effects of the venom and its treatment.  Ripa's own harrowing near death episodes are recounted in detail, making this the only firsthand, autobiographical look at bushmaster bite ever written.

The photo library alone exceeds all others previously published on these snakes, with hundreds of pictures of bushmasters copulating, combating, egg-laying, hatching from eggs (some with the mother coiled around them), striking, feeding, the effects of bushmaster bite, morphological comparisons of each species, and much more. 

Hardback print edition: $125.00 plus $6.00 shipping and handling ($131.00)

Cape Fear Serpentarium    20 Orange Street Wilmington NC 28401, USA

Please allow one week handling time before shipping.

If you have any questions please email us.