Frogs and snakes are not cuddly like pandas and not magnificent like tigers. Many people think they are ugly and boring. But they, and other reptiles and amphibians, are just as surely disappearing from the face of the earth. Why? A host of reasons: habitat destruction, pollution, disease, climate change, and over-collection for exotic pets, food, or folk medicines. If these animals go extinct just like the big dinosaurs did, then not only will we be the poorer for their absence, we will also be in big trouble. Populations of insect pests and disease carriers will explode without frogs to eat them; rodents and other small animals will flourish without snakes to fear. Our global ecosystem will be severely damaged. So what can we do? In this book, Marty Crump covers the 'state of the species' from common misconceptions about amphibians and reptiles, to their exploitation, to the solutions to the problems of their decline.

These include protecting habitats, doing more research about these animals, and enacting protective laws against capturing and killing them. Most of all, it means educating people about the value of these creatures and the need for their conservation.