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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Cro on July 7, 2008
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Robert, can't wait to hear what the new pitviper that you are describing is going to be.
It would be hard to top that long tailed rattlesnake as far as "coolness."
Please keep us informed as information from the new collecting expidition comes in.
Is there any type of publication, newsletter, website, etc that has updates of all of the great research you folks at U.T. Arlington are doing ?
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Snakeman1982 on July 7, 2008
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I believe Wuster still has his venomous snake systematics alert page up and running, however I just checked and he doesn't have stuff up for 2008. But that is a good site to check for. Also Center for North American Herpetology sometimes has updates on new species, but usually not for tropical stuff.
I'll keep people updated on my pitviper stuff when it comes out. The new species I am describing will be out soon and will be available free for download to anyone wanting a copy from the publisher. It also will have quite a few color photographs of the species and specimens (as well as a couple other species). The manuscript is pretty in depth (diet, natural history, morphological variation, etc...) and so it has taken a little longer to get finished. But it is done now and we are just waiting for a couple of final things before it is released.
There will also be another pitviper from Central America described soon (by Eric Smith) but the journal is hard to get pdfs of. If I can, I may try to distribute the pdfs to people after its release but not sure as I am not an author of that manuscript.
Sorry but we don't have anything official on our UTA site that lists our newest publications. I wish we did because people at UTA describe cool stuff all the time. I am just getting started however so I haven't done much yet.
Our only websites are:
http://biology.uta.edu/herpetology/
and
http://www.uta.edu/faculty/ensmith/people
Neither list our publications.
Glad people are interested.
Robert
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by FSB on July 16, 2008
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Well, I was about to post a message saying what a beautiful snake this is, and how much I hope it wasn't preserved, but now I can see from some later posts that my worst fears have already been confirmed. I'm sorry, and yes, I do know this will generate some flack from the academic types, but I have a major problem with popping healthy, wild reptiles in formaldehyde, especially if it's the only specimen known! For one thing, those beautiful colors will soon fade. Species have actually been improperly described and named on account of this, one example being the northern spring salamander, which was named Gyrinophilus porphyriticus (porphyros being Greek for "purple") on the basis of preserved specimens that had turned purple in formaldehyde, when their natural, living color is more of a reddish-pink (Conant). I really don't see how a preserved specimen is going to teach us more than a well-cared for captive, when there are so many variables (e.g. diet, behavior, toxicity of venom, frequency of shed cycles, etc.) that cannot be studied in a preserved specimen. Scale counts, yes, but big deal, those can be obtained from a shed skin. Why not keep the thing alive at least for as long as possible and then preserve it when it inevitably goes the way of all flesh? As a behaviorist, I am a little outraged that this beautiful and unique snake's behavior may never be studied unless other specimens can be found. What could psychoanalysts or sociologists hope to learn from studying dead people? Most reptiles are not particularly difficult to maintain in captivity by knowledgeable persons, of which there are plenty around. I really do not see any justification for killing a healthy specimen in this day and age, just because that's the tradition. What if that were the last one period? Or what if another specimen were found of the opposite sex? Then a breeding program might have been attempted, but now it's just a dead snake, of far more limited use and value than a living one. Why not let a good zoo house such specimens and make them available for research, as most zoos are happy to do? That would also give a lot of us, who really love rattlesnakes, a chance to see the thing alive. I feel cheated. That snake belonged to all of us. The practice of preserving wild, healthy specimens on the spot is heinous, barbaric, outdated and arrogant in the extreme. Sorry to rant, but this really p***es me off.
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Cro on July 16, 2008
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Frederick, very well stated !
The museum folks have never met a snake they did not want to pickle, LOL !
They are very quick to defend their actions, and spout about how they are contribute so much to science, and how they are all Ph.D.'s, and how many countries they have traveled to, and how many animals they have found, ad nauseam. Many of them are very egotistial. A good example of that is Joe Slowinski, whose life was resently reviewed here. Many of them tend to think that they are above other folks, and the only ones capable of understanding science.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some folks who work for museums are great reptile keepers also, and know the value of living animals. Thomas Eimermacher and John Campbell come to mind. The difference is that folks like John Campbell actually worked at Zoos.
Keeping an animal alive in a Texas Zoo would permit much more knowledge than their pickle will ever provide. At a Zoo, it could possibly be bred, and behavior could be recorded.
Once it is dead, it can not provide more information once the scale counts, mDNA, Nuclear DNA, and and physical descriptions are recorded. It just becomes another snake on a jar on a dusty museum shelf.
Most musem folks will never understand the harm they do, or what they are missing out on. They think what they are doing is a higher cause in the name of science than allowing an animal to live and contribute behavioral knowledge, then eventually be pickled after if lives out it's life. The museums who do maintain small living collections of reptiles still do not have the quality of exhibits that Zoos have. They have 1000 pickled snakes for every live one they have on display.
It is truely unfortunate, but the average museum / university type person will not be able to understand the logic in keeping an animal alive. They will make all kind of excuses, like what if it excapes, or the zoo burns down, or is stolen, etc. Of course they forget to mention that those same disasters could happen in a museum also. These are the same folks who would kill and pickle an Ivory Billed Woodpecker that turns up in a swamp in Arkansas or Cuba, the "preserve" it for science !
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Snakeman1982 on July 16, 2008
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First, I appreciate your point of view and I understand and agree with much of both of your posts. I agree it would have been nice and beneficial to house that specimen for people to see and for the possibility of future breeding.
Additionally, I think most academics and museum people have some sort of live herp in their house, apartment, etc... and do appreciate live herps, I don't keep animals personally, except a tree frog I am keeping till it dies and then I'll give to the collection. I use it for teaching students about amphibians in my biology classes. But that also isn't our job to display animals to the public. We do something entirely different.
I also don't like collecting much and only do it when I really believe there is a valid reason (new county record, little known species in the tropics, a region is about to be a golf course/housing complex, etc...) and I don't keep for my personal enjoyment. I know many people that I feel over-collect and I think that is wrong however there are a few things that I might defend for scientific collecting.
1. Apparently, before I came to UTA, we used to give a lot of attractive and important specimens to a couple zoos. We had them catalogued in our collection but let them stay at zoos with the understanding that when they became very old or died that UTA would get them back. Then long after the animal had died UTA would find out that the zoo just threw away the animal and never told us. So we stopped doing that because many of those specimens were invaluable.
2. I personally tried on two occasions last fall to collaborate with zoos in this way and offered zoo personel chances to go collecting with us in the tropics. I also told the curator at a zoo my friend works at that I would have formalin, alcohol, jars, etc... shipped to them and then would pay to have the specimens shipped back, for a few species that I was interested in. All I wanted was the specimen when it died, since all they do is throw them away in the trash anyway. They did not even seem remotely interested in contributing to science.
3. Colors on amphibians fade a lot more than reptiles, so it is less likely to make that mistake with reptiles. Plus now it is a lot harder to describe a new species than it use to be using strictly morphology. However, we try to make sure that we photograph the species in life as well as make field notes as to what the specimens looked like so we can compare them to other species/specimens later.
4. Over-collecting is bad and I believe that many museums and professors have been guilty of this over the years and it can and has impacted the environment. However this is nothing compared to the impact that the pet trade is having right now. I don't want to get into this subject but the wild caught pet trade does way more damage to wild populations than scientific collectors ever dreamed. Around 6.5 million amphibians and reptiles were LEGALLY imported into the U.S. last year alone. That single year is way more individuals than all the museums in the western hemisphere combined have collected in the past 200 years. There is no way that all the museums on the planet have more than 10 million catalogued herps. And a lot more than 10 million are imported and exported into the U.S. and Europe, each year.
5. Thomas and I were roommates when we started our Ph.D. program and I must say that he is probably the most responsible keeper I have met. I respect his care for the animals however I believe that for every Thomas there are a lot of people that don't know what they are doing and don't take care of their animals. I don't care if people get hurt by the animals they keep but I do care about the millions of animals that suffer from irresponsible husbandry. I am sure most people on this site agree.
6. Museums might have killed a lot of animals but not as much as other fields of study. The reason why systematists get blamed is that we have evidence for all the stuff we kill. We don't just throw it in the trash. Many ecology, physiology, etc... labs in science don't care about specimens and just throw the animal away letting it go to waste with no evidence. Our specimens will be around long after the species go extinct, not from museum collecting by the way. Specimens from Linneus' collection are still in perfect condition. Why don't zoos have big collections, especially since many of their animals are wild caught and have locality data that would be useful to the animal?
7. No one is stopping zoos or anyone from going to the tropics, finding new species, and conducting science. If people don't like museum collectors going to the tropics, catching stuff, and putting them in jars, then they can go down and do the research they want to do themselves. And zoos also have the potential and know how to publish interesting and valuable scientific articles on these important species. Why don't they more often? I wish it weren't just the universities. But the reason we know ANYTHING about the species in Central and South America is because people like Campbell, Duellman, Savage, Slowinski, etc... traveled, collected, photographed, and scientifically documented what they saw. Ecologists, physiologists, zoo people, etc... could all go down to the tropics as well.
Again, I agree with much of what was said previously. It would have been nicer if the individual would have stayed alive. However, you can't describe a new species from a photograph and you have to deposit a specimen in a museum as a holotype.
Robert
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Cro on July 17, 2008
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Robert, Thank You for your very well thought out reply.
It is great to hear that you also care about the value to science that a living animal can provide.
I agree with you that many academics and museum people do keep reptiles at home, and have an appreciation for living animals. I have met many, and herped with many of these people over the years.
You bring up the folks who over-collect, and I think that is the problem that has given some museum / university folks a bad reputation over the years.
There is a Professor here in Georgia who for years has taken basic Biology students out to collect and preserve herps that they find. Over the years, his students have killed tens of thousands of animals. The great majority of these students do not need to know how to preserve animals, and will never use that knowledge again. The animals they have killed are used for that semesters class then thrown into a dumpster. And he continues to defend his position that it is in the name of science. That is the kind of thing that gives museum / University folks a very bad reputation.
I know of another collection at a museum, that housed over 150 native snakes. That museum decided that it did not want to exhibit live reptiles anymore, so all of the animals went into the freezer. No effort was made to place the animals at other museums, science centers, or zoos. Those are the types of events that also cause folks to have a very bad view of museums.
I agree that a certain amount of scientific collecting is needed for true valid reasons, but still have a bit of a problem with the automatic preservation of a new species. I can remember many years ago in the past when visiting certain Texas Zoo collections, that some holotype animals were alive and on display, and when they passed on, they were to be preserved. Hopefully, that is what happened to them.
Your statement about UTA placing living specimins into Texas zoos under the conditon that you would get them back, is how things used to work. It is very unfortunate and dissappointing if the Zoos did not follow through with the commitment they made to UTA.
The Zoos have changed a lot from the way they were 25 to 30 years ago. I had the great fortune of knowing and herping with many of the Texas Zoo folks back then, and visiting friends like Joe Laszlo, Jim Murphy, Bern Tryon, John Werler, and J.P. Jones.
Back then folks like John Campbell worked closely with the Dallas Museum of Natural History. I collected many road killed animals for that museum collection back then, when I was doing a lot of herping in Texas.
If animals that UTA catalogued and placed alive in Zoos did not make it back to UTA after the animals died, then the Zoos are at fault. That is an outcome that should never happen. And it is an outcome that should cause UTA to choose different Zoos to place living animals with. Zoos should have very good record keeping system set up for their animals, and even with personell changes, the agrements they have made should be followed.
If I had been working at a Zoo and had been offered the chance to collaborate with you in the tropics, I would have taken you up on that opportunity immediatly. Have folks at the Zoos changed that much ?
It has been years since I visited a Texas Zoo, and even more years since I worked at a Zoo, but it is amazing that some of the Zoo folks would have not jumped at that opportunity. I would love to herp in the tropics anytime if that presented itself. I am really disappointed if that is what some of the Zoos have become. I have fond memories of what the Texas Zoos were like years ago when all of the new animals were being brought back from Mexico and Central / South America. I can remember John Campbell showing me some of the amazing new animals that he had brought back from Mexico.
As far as your topic #4, very good point. Overcollecting for any reason, pet trade or "science" is a bad thing.
Topic # 6. You are right that Zoos often do not use animals that die in the right way. At the Atlanta Zoo, when an animal died, it sometimes recieved a
necropsy, and then was disposed of, or stuck in the freezer. Many of those animals could have been preserved and sent to museums. At one time the Zoo did supply a museum with dead animals, however, that museum just froze the animals also, and never used them for anything. Because of that, the Zoo stopped giving the museum animals. Perhaps a different museum would have used the animals better. The freezer at that museum still has a frozen skinned elephant, several lions, a zebra, a gorilla, many herps, and many smaller primates, all of which have been on ice for 35 years.
Topic #7. In the past, Musuems and Zoos worked better together. Many Zoo folks explored and published as did museum people. Some Zoo people like John Campbell and Jim Murphy became museum people.
Years ago the meetings of the Herpetologists League were groups of Zoo and Museum folks. The total number of herpers in the US was only a few hundred, and most of them knew, or knew of, the others. The internet was not invented, and the reptile hobby folks were tied in to herp societies that were tied to Zoos and Museums. Communication was through bulletins, journals, and snail mail.
Things have changed a lot.
Robert, in the future I hope you will still work to try to improve the relationship of the UTA Museum and Texas Zoos. I am willing to bet that there are still some Zoos in Texas that would love to be able to exhibit some of the live animals you find, and that will follow through and keep those animals available for your collections when the animals eventually die. Doug Holte at the new Victoria Zoo comes to mind immediatly. At least I hope there are still Zoos like that in Texas. It sure would be nice if some of these very rare animals were available for display, and to help learn about the behaviors of these animals while they lived out their lives. That would be the best of both worlds.
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by FSB on July 29, 2008
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Sorry, guys, been out of town for a week and haven't been able to respond to this thread. Meanwhile, I see that good ol' John Z. has stepped in with an approriate response, which I would basically like to echo. First of all, thanks, Robert, for your thoughtful and measured response to a sensitive topic, but I do find it amazing (I'm not doubting your word, but it seems incredible) that zoos could be so uncooperative as to break their word and discard holotypes that were promised to museums. I have been a lifelong visitor to and advocate of both types of institutions. Perhaps written contracts are in order! I would really like to see a lot more cooperation between researchers of all types, zoo, university or museum, for the greater benefit of all concerned (particularly the specimens!). I still maintain my opposition to the automatic and systematic preservation of specimens as being rather outdated and anachronistic in light of the many advances in husbandry and propogation that have been made recently. The issue of over-collecting is a whole 'nother can of worms, but I wholeheartedly share your disdain for this practice for whatever purpose, commercial or otherwise. I think John covered everything pretty well. I find his tale of the biology teacher and the excesses of his classes to be horrific. Isn't biology supposed to be the study of life?
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Snakeman1982 on July 29, 2008
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FSB,
I appreciate yours and CRO's response in this forum.
1. I am certain that we didn't give any type specimens to zoos. They were just rare and important scientific specimens that we let them have on display.
2. Everyone at UTA from Campbell, most of the graduate students (currently we have 16), and our collections manager has spent some time in the zoo field. So we know both sides of the story.
3. The worst problems I believe that we have had with zoos are the vets. They demand that a necropsy is conducted on all dead animals, even ones that were given to the zoo. That is ridiculous! Most of these hack jobs probably aren't necessary anyway yet they leave the specimens useless. Granted we dissect animals as well in order to find out what the species eat and to understand their anatomy but our specimens are still in excellent condition afterwards. Not sure why they can't do the same.
Thanks again for the constructive forum. I am about to post another topic based on this one that is strictly about museum collecting.
Robert
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Cro on July 29, 2008
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Robert,
I can sure understand how SOME Zoo Vets could really mess up an animal for furure Scientific use.
It is really unfortunate that that happens.
We had a vet at the Atlanta Zoo who once tried to remove a tumor from the intentestinal area of a banded krait.
When he was not able to remove the tumor, he just sewed the intenstine shut on the snake, and revived it.
He said "put it back on display, and don't feed it, it should last a few months that way."
I once took a very sick American Crocodile from the Atlanta Zoo to the UGA Vet School, where it was put down and necropsied by the Vet Teachers there. We had been having crocks die from a strange lung infection that caused white cists to form in the lungs.
Well, once the vets got into the necropsy, one of them picks up the pancreas and asks me "is this the swim bladder ?" My first though was, Ummmm.... and these guys are the Vet Teachers ??? I had to remind him that a Crocodile was not a Fish, LOL !
Looking forward to seeing your new article.
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Crotalus ericsmithi (new species!!!)
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by Snakeman1982 on July 29, 2008
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Sorry about the experience with the vets there. I have heard lots of stories like that.
Also, Dr. Joe Mendelson and Dr. Dwight Lawson at Zoo Atlanta went to graduate school at UT Arlington and still conduct research here. I believe they seem to do an excellent job bridging the gap of the academic and zoo field.
Robert
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