Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians

By J. Whitfield Gibbons

Their Blood Runs Cold is entertaining, informative reading that not only enhances our understanding of a unique group of animals, but also provides genuine insight into the mind and character of a research scientist.   Whit Gibbons possesses the rare talent of conveying the challenge and excitement of scientific inquiry. A research ecologist who specializes in the study of reptiles and amphibians, he gives accounts of work in the field that are as readable as good short stories.   From the dangers of being chased by an angry rattlesnake to the exhilaration of discovering a previously undescribed species, Gibbons brings to life the everyday experiences of the herpetologist as he chases down lizards, turtles, snakes, alligators, salamanders, and frogs in their natural habitats. With essays like “Turtles May Be Slow but They’re 200 Million Years Ahead of Us” and “How to Catch an Alligator in One Uneasy Lesson,” Their Blood Runs Cold both entertains and informs.   The thirtieth anniversary edition of Their Blood Runs Cold features a new prologue and epilogue, additions that address changes in the taxonomy and study of reptiles and amphibians that have occurred since the publication of the original edition and offer suggestions for further reading that highlight the explosion of interest in the topic.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Aug 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9780817386993

Book preview

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 (ebook)

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 South east, 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 erythro gaster. 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

Contents

Foreword to First Edition

Prologue

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Reptiles and Amphibians:

The Field for Herpetology

Chapter 2: The Snakes:

Once Upon a Bushmaster

Chapter 3: The Turtles:

Turtles May Be Slow but They're 200 Million Years Ahead of Us

Chapter 4: The Crocodilians:

How to Catch an Alligator in One Uneasy Lesson

Chapter 5: The Lizards:

When Blowguns and Nooses Have Unusual Uses

Chapter 6: The Salamanders:

Ohio State 7, Alabama 3, Salamanders 0

Chapter 7: The Frogs and Toads:

Who's Watching the Frogs?

Chapter 8: Techniques in Herpetology:

To Catch a Cooter

Chapter 9: More Techniques:

To Find a Mud Turtle

Chapter 10: The Future of Reptiles and Amphibians:

Can We Find a Hiding Place, Too?

Chapter 11: Teaching the Public:

How to Hold an Audience with a Snake

Epilogue

Selected References in Herpetology

Further Reading in Herpetology, 2012

Index

Foreword to the First Edition

Recently a group of students and faculty were discussing what it takes to be a successful scientist. Granting that innate talent and higher education are important, all agreed that enthusiasm for one's subject is an essential ingredient. If one enjoys delving deeply into some aspect of the world in which we live, that person will spend the extra hours and make the extra effort that is required for a successful career in science.

Because most people, including most scientists, have very little enthusiasm for reptiles and amphibians, herpetologists need to be genuinely infatuated with their subject if they are to attract attention to their work. Whit Gibbons is such a person. He is a dedicated naturalist and his enthusiasm is so contagious that in a very short time he can convince almost anyone that snakes and turtles and lizards are fascinating, if not downright lovable. Whit enjoys his work as a research scientist at the 190,000-acre Savannah River Plant, the Department of Energy's National Environmental Research Park where scientists seek solutions to difficult problems relating to energy development, and his enthusiasm is reflected in every page of this book. Paradoxically, the research park is also a wildlife paradise.

Whit also enjoys writing about his work and adventures in the field. The essays and stories assembled in this book are good reading and they contribute new insights into the ecology of a little known and much maligned group of animals.

Each of the eleven chapters reveals the exciting as well as the endearing qualities of reptiles and amphibians, taking into account not only how they are in real life but how we perceive them.

In the first chapter Whit analyzes the reasons why snakes and their kin are wrongly feared and loathed by many persons, or at least are considered insignificant in the human environmental scheme. A personal experience is related to show that ignorance, not only on the part of the layman but also by the medical doctor and the scientist, is an underlying cause of public misgivings and misunderstanding. The following chapters, one on each of the six major groups of reptiles and amphibians, include a series of true short stories, anecdotes, and fascinating facts that clearly drive home the message that none of us knows enough about these animals. The book tells us more than we have ever known about herpetology and makes us yearn to find out more.

Two of the chapters dwell on herpetological techniques of finding, catching, and studying these elusive and unusual animals. Not surprisingly, the methods are often unusual in themselves: X-ray photography to count turtle eggs, blowguns to catch lizards, and radioactive tags to find out where salamanders go in the summertime. Many of the techniques, now standard fare for the practicing field herpetologist, were developed on the Savannah River Plant and presented in technical journals by Whit and his colleagues at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

The final two chapters give one cause for serious thought. Reptiles and amphibians are presented as an example of the conflicts that can arise in this nation and throughout the world as a result of ecological ignorance. Thus, Whit ends his book with the message that we will all be better off if we acquire a higher level of knowledge about snakes, turtles, lizards, salamanders, frogs, and alligators. And when you finish the book you will have done just that.

EUGENE P. ODUM

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 herpetologist 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 handing 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 herpetology meeting that was probably the one in Florida while some 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 uplifting 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 information 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 appeared 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 relationships 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 refuting long-held 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 phylo genetic relationships among particular species and genera. The namechanging 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 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 and amphibians that occur in the United States have any significant commercial value still holds for the 530 species recognized in 2012 as it did for the 450 species recognized in 1983. I mention species numbers in several other places in the book (e.g., snakes on page 23, venomous snakes on page 31, and turtles on page 43), but disparities between current numbers and those of an earlier time do not alter the context of the material presented.

Experts in systematics seldom agree fully on taxonomic designations, so the numbers not only change across years they also vary between authorities within the same year. By the summer of 2012 reputable websites (e.g., Amphibiaweb, National Amphibian Atlas, and the Reptile Database) and the latest edition of Herpetology by Laurie Vitt and Jan Caldwell provided updated lists of species numbers for various countries and the world. The sources were roughly in agreement in their taxonomic areas of overlap, and the numbers far exceeded those from thirty years earlier. Worldwide estimates of more than 7,000 amphibians and 9,500 reptiles represent increases of more than 2,000 known species in each group since even a decade earlier. Clearly, many of the numbers given in Their Blood Runs Cold have changed as a consequence of new discoveries, phylogenetic reinterpretations, and taxonomic splitting. The messages have not.

In addition to progress in the increasingly sophisticated field of genetics, advances have been made in trapping and observational techniques. Improvements in methods of marking reptiles and amphibians for individual identification, such as visual implant elastomers in amphibians and PIT (passive induced transponder) tags in amphibians and reptiles, have allowed researchers to collect unprecedented information on life history and ecology, including mortality and survivorship patterns of many species. The use of long-range radiotelemetry was already in play in 1983, but the development of microtransmitters, along with longer-lasting batteries, has led to remarkable advances in our understanding of dispersal, migration, and daily activity patterns of numerous species.

A linguistic error in the book is the result of changing conventions between the terms poisonous and venomous. Animals and plants that are toxic to animals that eat them have been referred to over time almost exclusively as poisonous and not venomous. The distinction is that venom is injected whereas poison is consumed by ingestion or inhalation. Pit vipers and cobras, along with stingrays, scorpions, and spiders are venomous. Newts, mushrooms, and monarch butterflies are poisonous. Nonetheless, venomous snakes were commonly referred to as poisonous snakes throughout most of the twentieth century, and continue to be by many people. Being pedantic about the terminology may be overanalyzing the issue when someone refers to a poisonous snake, as we know what is meant. But I made an error on page 88 when I said that no salamanders are poisonous. I should have said none are venomous. The error was compounded because I later state that a pelican and a person died from poisoning after eating a Pacific newt.

In his book review in Copeia, Gary Ferguson pointed out some factual errors that bear correcting. Donald W. Tinkle, whose photo appears on page 16, died in 1980 (February 21, to be precise). Gary also noted that baby iguanas have been reported to be strict vegetarians and not insect eaters as I said on page 71. On a more conceptual issue, he pointed out that I was a bit off in my references to the higher classification levels of tuataras, crocodilians, lizards, and snakes. Twenty-first century reinterpretations of the phylogenetic relationships among major reptile groups have shifted considerably from the classical orders and subclasses recognized in the 1980s, but since the issue remains a controversial one among authorities, updating the statements in the book would not be constructive.

One component that stands out in stark contrast to many current books on herpetology is the grayscale photography that focused mostly on people, many of whom are now internationally known scientists. The caption on page 125 is correct in what it says but bears mention because of implications in the last sentence that the person shown is Mike Plummer with a softshell turtle. The person in the photograph is actually Justin Congdon who is holding a slider turtle. The not-so-impressive close-ups of species have clearly been surpassed in later books by the rapid evolution of digital photography, with spectacular color and resolution. As the book was not meant to be a field guide, retention of the original photographs seems appropriate.

Considering the advances that have been made in molecular genetics, the changes that have occurred in taxonomic designations, and the technological advancements that have been made in herpetological research (as well as every other scientific discipline) in the past thirty years, what can a book on herpetology written in 1983 offer today's readers? For herpetoculturists, whose numbers have increased a hundredfold or more from what they were in the 1980s, the book presents an array of information, technical and nontechnical, about the animals they call their pets. Researchers using reptiles or amphibians as their study animals can gain a deeper understanding of this intriguing assemblage of animals. For some scientists, the book might be a reminder of why they were interested in the field of science in the first place, because when they were young, they enjoyed being outdoors and fooling around with snakes, frogs, turtles, and the like. It might also inspire young readers to pursue a career in science, whether herpetology or some other discipline.

Since 1983 I have signed more copies of Their Blood Runs Cold than any of my other books. Rarely do I attend a meeting, give a speech, or have a book-signing when someone doesn't ask me to autograph a copy of the first book I wrote for a popular audience. Before writing this prologue, I reread Their Blood Runs Cold in full for the first time in three decades. I believe it has withstood the test of time. I hope you will agree.

Acknowledgments

The indebtedness one has to others in undertaking a book is great. My utmost gratitude goes to my family—to my wife Carol for constant support and a rather unusual tolerance; to Laura, Jennifer, Susan Lane, and Michael for their special contributions; to my mother Janie, my father Bob, and my sister Anne and her husband Bill for their encouragement and editorial contributions; to my Aunt Harriet for suggesting I become a biologist, and to my mother and father for letting me.

My professional career was critically shaped by several scientists. The most influential of these was the late Dr. Donald W. Tinkle. Others include Drs. Ralph L. Chermock, Don L. McGregor, Joab L. Thomas, M. Max Hensley, George H. Lauff, John A. King, Gerald W. Esch, Richard G. Wiegert, Michael H. Smith, Frank B. Golley, Rebecca R. Sharitz, and Eugene P. Odum.

The threescore individuals who have worked with me as student or faculty research participants or technical assistants at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory since 1967 have contributed in subtle and obvious ways. Special thanks go to Judith L. Greene, John W. Coker, David H. Nelson, Raymond D. Semlitsch, and David H. Bennett for their much-needed support during critical periods. I thank Rebecca R. Sharitz, Garfield H. Keaton, Joseph P. Schubauer, Janalee P. Caldwell, Stephen H. Bennett, Laurie J. Vitt, Justin D. Congdon, and Karen K. Patterson for reading parts of the manuscript. Dr. George R. Zug read the original version of the Selected References in Herpetology and suggested additional titles. Nancy Barber diligently typed the manuscript until it reached its final form. Jean Baldwin Coleman made the drawings labeled JBC.

I appreciate the encouragement of several individuals in nonbiological fields, including Joe Harris, Idella Bodie, Lynne Katonak, Isabelle Vandervelde, and other members