Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians

Prologue

Prologue • xi Prologue Their Blood Runs Cold, Thirty Years Later Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians was published by the University of Alabama Press thirty years ago. I held my first book signing at a bookstore in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I signed only two books that day, neither of them was to a herpetologist. The books were purchased by two of my dad’s younger brothers, Jimmie and Bud, and when I signed them, I spelled Uncle Jimmie’s name wrong—Jimmy. Someone else came to the nature section during the two hours I sat mostly alone and thumbed through Their Blood Runs Cold but then decided to buy a different book. One on cats, if memory serves. The first copy I remember being asked to sign by a herpetolo­ gist was when George Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, held the book up and presented it to me over the heads of a group of people at the 1983 American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meetings in Tallahassee. Most of the people present, mainly herpetologists with a small contamination of ichthyologists, did not notice George hand­ ing me the book. They were more interested in the mariachi band that was putting on a lively performance. That’s the way I remember it. But George says it wasn’t him. And Roy McDiarmid says the mariachi band was at the next year’s meeting in Norman, Oklahoma, not the one in Florida. So maybe George was not the first herpetologist for whom I signed a book, and maybe no mariachi band was playing when George didn’t ask for an autographed copy of the book. Nonetheless, I maintain that someone like George asked me to sign a copy of the book at a her­ petology meeting that was probably the one in Florida while some xii • Prologue kind of band was playing and that everyone around me was more interested in the music than the book. Those early days as a newly published author were neither as up­ lifting nor as glamorous as I imagined they had been for herp hero authors like Raymond Ditmars, Carl Kauffeld, and Archie Carr. I had not written Their Blood Runs Cold for fame and fortune (thank goodness) but to come to peace with my professional career and justify to myself that wanting to be nothing more esoteric than a herpetologist was acceptable. I had at the time, and still have, friends and colleagues who have had impressive scientific careers in genetics, physiology, mathematical modeling, animal behavior, and evolutionary ecology. These are the professionals who move science forward, scientists who cover many arenas of zoology and ecology and who have contributed to the great strides that have been made in all the sciences, including herpetology. Since the 1980s the in­ formation base for reptiles and amphibians has exploded into an expanding universe of herpetological knowledge. This book has been reprinted in its entirety, exactly as it ap­ peared thirty years ago. Not too surprisingly, it is dated in some respects and contains a few of what an editor friend of mine calls “infelicities.” Most of these are the result of new discoveries that have been made in various scientific fields. As the original text has not been changed in this reissue, errors of commission and omission that I am aware of are noted below. Molecular genetics in its collective costumes has reshaped much of the breadth and depth of our thinking about phylogenetic re­ lationships of many groups of organisms, including reptiles and amphibians. The revelations have led to shifts in systematics and taxonomy that have been helpful in some ways by confirming or re­ futing long­held convictions about relationships between and among species, genera, families, and higher taxonomic levels. Some of the changes in scientific terminology, however, seem a bit forced and are not necessary for maintaining a clear picture of phylogenetic relationships among particular species and genera. The name­ changing phenomenon is not a new one; shifting nomenclature in response to new interpretations has a zoological history of at least three centuries. Not surprisingly, one outcome of genetic research has been that the number of species recognized by herpetologists among the Prologue • xiii various groups of reptiles and amphibians has increased appreciably over the past thirty years. Nonetheless, the statement on page 11 that “only a few . . . species of reptiles...