Curator Of Reptiles Research Articles

NCSS notable trade book lesson plan: Joan Procter, dragon doctor: the woman who loved reptiles

PurposeJoan Procter, Dragon Doctor describes the life of Joan Beauchamp Procter, renowned herpetologist, zoologist, Curator of Reptiles at the British Museum and designer of the London Zoo Reptile House. In this lesson, students reframe initial viewpoints of scientists that are not representative of a broad understanding of who scientists are and what being a scientist means. Exploring understandings and expanding their view of science to include varied areas of social sciences provokes deep discussions among students as they prepare to teach others. Using content area skills, artwork, writing, literacy and technology, students explore diverse people and fields of the sciences.Design/methodology/approachStudents engage in collaborative efforts with peers to involve themselves with content knowledge and skills in the social studies, as they integrate other areas of the curriculum including science, art, writing, literacy, literature, technology, critical thinking, research skills and inquiry-based learning. Findings include students participating in meaningful learning individually and collectively through inquiry. As students learn with and from one another, they conceptualize their own ideas through their own work in exploring relevant resources. Students plan action to move learning outside the classroom in generating changes in museums and monuments to showcase broader cultural representation of scientists in their communities.FindingsStudents engage in inquiry learning using Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor as a key text. Students explore the text and related resources, while learning with one another about scientists. Students expand their content knowledge and apply critical thinking skills, noting similarities and differences in scientists, ultimately acknowledging that what scientists do through inquiry and exploration helps them identify as scientists. Varied fields and backgrounds of scientists are explored, and students examine cultural representation in museums commemorating scientists and scientific contributions. Students create action plans to consult with museums about these issues and curate exhibits, like Joan Procter, to share with others.Originality/valueThis lesson provides students multiple avenues to deepen learning while conceptualizing and formulating their own understandings. Further, students are required to use multiple skills in conveying their ideas for social change to reflect their new broader conceptualization of scientists and the many fields that science includes. Additionally, they have to understand the topics discussed fully in order to convey their research findings to another audience in their school or community as they create museum exhibits. Finally, while students learn, they begin to see themselves represented in fields through evident, inclusive demonstrations of contributions by diverse scientists.

Historical Perspective: Charles C. Carpenter and Reptilian Behavioral Ecology

I was pleased to be invited by the organizers of this symposium to give an opening encomium for Charles Congden Carpenter. I was honored to be asked to say something about the career and contributions of a personal friend and colleague. His accomplishments would be easy to relate, for the record is clear to all, but what about his personal traits? Perhaps a roast would work. Or should I keep things more serious and, perhaps, more in accord with the occasion? After obtaining the input of some of his family members and former students-and probably to Chuck's great relief-I soon decided that a roast was just not reconcilable with the personality and character of the man we honor here. Although Chuck is certainly not without humor-all who know him will recall his often twinkling eye, followed by a droll comment or pun and often what can be described only as Chuck's chuckle-he is in the final analysis a gentleman scholar, somewhat of the old school, who keeps his own counsel. Carpenter was born on 2 June 1921 in Denison, Iowa. He received his B.A. degree from Northern Michigan College of Education in 1943. After graduation, he entered the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and attended training programs at several colleges, including a year at Wayne University Medical School in Detroit. After the end of World War II and at his own request, he left for graduate school at the University of Michigan. He received his M.S. in 1947 and Ph.D. in 1951. Frederick Test was his major professor. In 1947 he married Mary Pitynski, who also has had a professional career as an outstanding biochemist at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Their oldest daughter, Janet, despite severe diabetes that led to blindness and kidney transplants, completed two degrees in anthropology and continues to live independently and remain active in community affairs. Their other daughter, Caryn Sue (Vaughn), completed her Ph.D. at Oklahoma and is an aquatic ecologist with the Oklahoma Biological Survey. Their son, Geoff, recently received his Ph.D. from New Mexico State and presented the first scientific paper in this symposium. In the summer of 1952 Carpenter first taught at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station, and in 1953 he joined the Faculty at Oklahoma as an Assistant Professor, thus continuing the tradition there in herpetology and vertebrate zoology established by his predecessors A. I. Ortenberger, A. 0. Weese, and Arthur Bragg. In 1959 he was promoted to Associate Professor and also became Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at the Stovall Museum (now the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History). Carpenter became a full Professor in 1966. In 1987 he became a Professor Emeritus and Curator Emeritus. Retired, but certainly not inactive, he has published several papers and a centennial history of his department. Carpenter's honors include Distinguished Alumni Award from Northern Michigan University, University of Oklahoma Regents' Award for Superior Accomplishment in Research & Creative Activity, first recipient (1986) of the W. Frank Blair Eminent Naturalist Award of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists, Outstanding Scientist Award from the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences (1991), Fellow of The Herpetologists' League,

Communication Signals in Lizards

Charles Carpenter is professor of zoology at the University of Oklahoma and University of Oklahoma Biological Station, Norman 73019, and curator of reptiles at the Stovall Museum of Science and History. He holds a B.A. degree from Northern Michigan College of Education (now Northern Michigan University), and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Michigan. He is the recipient of many research grants and several awards, including the Distinguished Alumni Award from Northern Michigan University in 1972, and the Regents' Award for Superior Accomplishment in Research and Creative Activity in 1980. Dr. Carpenter holds memberships in many professional and honorary societies and has held offices in several of them. Since 1947, Dr. Carpenter has authored or coauthored over 100 publications. lhe males of some, probably many kinds of lizards, fight together from rivalry. Thus the arboreal Anolis cristatellus of South America is extremely pugnacious: During the spring and early part of the summer, two adult males rarely meet without a contest. On first seeing one another, they nod their heads up and down three or four times, and at the same time expanding the frill or pouch beneath the throat; their eyes glisten with rage, and after waving their tails from side to side for a few seconds, as if to gather energy, they dart at each other furiously, rolling over and over, and holding firmly with their teeth. Charles Darwin, Descent of Man (1871). The nodding of the head and expansion of the throat pouch by these male lizards may not have been recognized by Darwin as their manner of communicating with each other. I will relate my experiences to show that lizards do communicate with each other by using pushups and head nods and that each species does this in its own way, conveying different types of information. I first became aware of these visual signals while observing a population of fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) on the shore of Lake Texoma near the University of Oklahoma Biological Station. The males of this small species performed pushups from the knobs on logs and raised areas along a beach. Each time they performed, the same pattern of pushups was repeated with the same rhythm. Each male performed or signaled in his own territory so that he was visible to other males in their respective territories. Thus it appeared that each male was using the same pushup pattern to communicate to males in adjacent territories his claim to a certain area (Carpenter 1962). During the following few years I acquired different species of iguanid lizards from throughout the Southwestern United States. These were placed in large outside enclosures where they could readily be observed and their behaviors recorded on motion picture film. The males of these different species quickly adapted to these enclosures, set up dominance hierarchies (in lieu of territories), and actively displayed at one another as they would from a territorial lookout. In every instance, each species performed with a different pattern of pushups or head nods which indicated to me that each species had its own set of visual communication signals or language (Carpenter 1967). Over the next ten to fifteen years, with the help of a number of graduate students, it was established that every species of iguanid and agamid lizard for which we obtained data had its own species-specific display-actionpattern (pattern of vertical movements through time). It has not been possible to observe all of the species of these two closely related families of lizards because they are too numerous. The Family Iguanidae ranges all over the Western Hemisphere and its nearby islands, with a genus on the Fiji-Tonga Islands and two genera on Madagascar, while the numerous species of the Agamidae complement this distribution, being found in the Old World from Africa to Australia. However, we have observed representative species from all

Nematode parasites of Oceanica

Camallanus marinus sp.nov. is described from eleven specimens recovered from a variety of marine fishes. It is the only species in Camallanus s.s. with a single spicule. Spinitectus palawanensis sp.nov. is described from two males and one female found in a scombrid fish. It is characterized by having 12–17 rings of 60–65 spines, a spicule ratio of 5:1, and ten pairs of caudal papillae. Cucullanus lutjani, sp.nov. is described from two specimens from lutjanid fishes. It is distinct in lacking a preanal sucker, in possessing a gubernaculum and eight pairs of cloacal papillae.Oceanicucullanus padfica gen. et sp.nov. is described from two specimens found in cyprinid fish. It is most similar to Indocucullanus, differing from it in the absence of a gubernaculum, and in possessing three pairs of teeth in the radii of the oesophagus. Philometra (Philometra) lateolabracis Yamaguti, 1935; Terranova sp.; and Procamallanus spp. are reported for the first time in the Philippines.We wish to thank Dr D. S. Rabor, Silliman University, Damageute, Negros Oriental, Republic of the Philippines, for general support in field activities, and Dr Loren Wood, Curator of Fishes, and Dr Robert F. Inger, Curator of Reptiles, Chicago Museum of Natural History, for identification of hosts. Acknowledgement is also made to Dr Betty June Myers for technical assistance and advice in handling materials.

Salmonella and Arizona in reptiles and man in Western Australia.

SUMMARY1. Ninety-seven (83.6%) of 116 reptiles, comprising 70 lizards, 40 snakes, 4 tortoises and 2 crocodiles, yielded isolations of organisms in the Salmonella and/or Arizona groups.2. The reptiles were captive or free-ranging; the former were drawn from all states of mainland Australia, while the latter were from West Australia only.3. The relative prominence ofSalmonellaserotypes containing numerically highsomatic antigens, the finding of newserotypes, of multiple infections, and of strains in subgenera II and III was remarked.4. The lack of evidence of differences in the serotypes isolated from captive or wild reptiles (except for the isolation ofS. typhimuriumin creatures closely associated with man and his domestic fauna), and the apparent absence of a specific geographical distribution of serotypes in reptiles, lent support to the con clusion that reptiles provide a natural reservoir forSalmonellaand Arizona strains in Australia. The possible spill-over to man, his domestic animals and his food stuffs is discussed.It is a pleasure to record our indebtedness to Dr Joan Taylor for her continuous interest and support in providing confirmation and identification of manySalmonellaserotypes; to Dr W. H. Ewing and later Dr R. Rhode for serotyping the Arizona strains; to Dr G. M. Storr, Curator of Reptiles in the Museum of Western Australia, for identifying the reptiles and to Dr W. S. Davidson, Commissioner of Public Health, Western Australia, for permission to publish.

Breeding the Galapagos Tortoise—Success Story

The Curator of Reptiles at the San Diego Zoo describes a successful captive breeding programme—after a difficult start—with a highly endangered species. By the beginning of this century the huge daughter of Galapagos tortoises, mostly by sailors in need of fresh meat on board ship, had dangerously reduced their numbers, and the destruction has been continued since by the predators introduced by settlers and visitors—rats, cats, dogs and pigs which preyed on the eggs and young, and goats which competed with the tortoises for food. The first successful hatching of tortoises at San Diego Zoo took place in October, 1958, but fertility is very low, and the author concludes that the tortoises have never reproduced in substantial numbers because, for various reasons, they do not need to do so, and that they are probably incapable of doing so.

Dr. Joan B. Procter

SELDOM has the triumph of force of mind over physical weakness been more vividly illustrated than in the case of Dr. Joan Beauchamp Procter, curator of reptiles and amphibians in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, who died at her residence in Regent's Park on Sept. 20, at the age of thirty-four years.

Reptiles and Amphibians: Their Habits and Adaptations . By Thomas Barbour, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Illustrated in part by George Nelson, Preparator in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co.

<i>Reptiles and Amphibians: Their Habits and Adaptations</i> . By Thomas Barbour, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Illustrated in part by George Nelson, Preparator in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co.

The London Zoological Society's Aquarium

THE aquarium at the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, which has been in course of construction for the past eighteen months, is now complete, and was opened by His Grace the Duke of Bedford on April 5. Mr. E. G. Boulenger, who has been Curator of Reptiles at the. Gardens for the past twelve years, has been appointed Director, and has himself superintended the construction down to the smallest detail.