Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

THEIR BLOOD RUNS COLD THEIR BLOOD RUNS COLD ADvEnTuREs wITH Reptiles and Amphibians wHIT GIBBOns 30th Anniversary Edition The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa Copyright © 1983, 2013 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First edition published 1983 Typeface: Caledonia and Bookman Cover photograph: The red-bellied subspecies of the plain-bellied watersnake (Nerodia erythrogaster); courtesy of J. D. Willson Cover design: Michele Myatt Quinn ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gibbons, Whit, 1939– Their blood runs cold : adventures with reptiles and amphibians / Whit Gibbons. — Thirtieth anniversary edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8173-5751-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8699-3 (e book) 1. Reptiles. 2. Amphibians. I. Title. QL641.G5 2013 597.9—dc23 2013005898 Note on cover image: Red-bellied watersnakes are non-venomous, semiaquatic , common throughout much of their geographic range in the Southeast, and are more terrestrial than most species of watersnakes. The author captured the largest specimen (measuring more than five feet four inches in total length) of the species ever recorded from anywhere in its range. (See Gibbons, J. W. 1999. Geographic Distribution. Nerodia erythrogaster. Plain-bellied water snake. Size. Herpetological Review 30: 47.) The giant watersnake was captured in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, at night on April 16, 1960, when the author was an undergraduate at the University of Alabama. The specimen is preserved in the University of Alabama Natural History Museum under catalog number 65-3860. For my mother Janie M. Gibbons ...