Foreword

Bohai Sea is an inland sea surrounded by Liaodong Peninsula,Shandong Peninsula and North China Plain in a ＂C＂ shape.The surrounding land radiates to Beijing Municipality, Tianjin Municipality,Hebei Province, Shandong Province and Liaoning Province, which is called Bohai Sea Rim Region.

This region is the intersection of the North China, the East China and the Northeast China, which has special natural geographical position and unique biological diversity.Therefore, the ecological safety and preservation of biological resources are great important in China.This region is one of the most diverse and endemic areas of amphibians and reptiles in the Palaearctic realm of the zoogeographical region (also defined as the Sino-Japanese realm by some researchers).There are 22 species of amphibians, 48 species of reptiles and 3 exotic species distributing in this region, among them 5 are endemic to China.

This book takes a detailed account of species diversity and habitat characteristics of amphibious reptiles in the Bohai Sea Rim Region by the form of illustrated handbook, which makes references for colleges students and postgraduate students majoring in biology to study, providing as a scientific reference for research and teaching,conservation and public education, resource protection and monitoring evaluation, utilization and government management of experts and scholars, and as a more available and useful tool for natural enthusiasts, ecological tourists and wildlife conservation volunteers, as well as students in primary and high schools.

Due to the limitation of the authors' knowledge, mistakes are inevitable in the book, we solicit your valuable comments.

Li Jianli, Li Pipeng, Lu Yuyan

May 30th, 2018