Roger Conant

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Roger Conant (born May 6, 1909 , Mamaroneck ( New York ), † December 19, 2003 , Albuquerque ) was an American herpetologist , author, teacher and conservationist.

Life

Conant grew up in Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania . His father died early, and to help his mother, he took on a temporary job at the Philadelphia Zoo as a teenager. This is where his lifelong passion for reptiles began .

In 1929 he moved to Toledo , Ohio , and worked as the head of the reptile department, later as the chief curator of the local zoo. In 1935 he returned to the Philadelphia Zoo as head (curator) of the reptile department. From 1946 to 1947 Conant was President of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and in 1952 co-founder of the Philadelphia Herpetological Society. In 1967 he was promoted to director of the Philadelphia Zoo.

Because of the illness of his wife Isabelle Hunt Conant, who as an animal photographer contributed many photos to his identification books, Conant moved to Albuquerque in 1973 and accepted a professorship at the University of New Mexico . His wife Isabelle died in 1976. In 1979 he married Kathryn Gloyd, widow of his friend and colleague Howard K. Gloyd .

On December 19, 2003, Roger Conant died of cancer.

Scientific achievements

Conant became one of the most famous herpetologists in the United States after writing one of the first complete identification books on North American reptiles in 1958. In 1976 he completed his monograph on the viper genus triangular head caterpillars ( Agkistrodon ), which he had started in the 1930s and later continued by Howard K. Gloyd.

In total, he wrote twelve books and around 240 scientific articles.

He described numerous new species of snakes, including several species of the genus American swimming snakes ( Nerodia ) and the genus Garter Snakes ( Thamnophis ). In the year of his death he described new subspecies of the Mexican garter snake .

Selected Works

  • Autobiography: A Field Guide to the Life and Times of Roger Conant , Canyonlands Publishing Group, 1997: ISBN 0-9657446-0-4
  • A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians: Eastern and Central North America (co-author: Joseph T. Collins ), 1st edition 1958, 2nd edition 1975, Houghton Mifflin (P): ISBN 0-3951997-7-8
  • Peterson's Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the Eastern United States , 1958
  • North American Watersnakes: A Natural History , University of Oklahoma Press, 2004: ISBN 0-8061359-9-9
  • Reptiles and Amphibians (Peterson First Guides) , Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999: ISBN 0-3959719-5-0
  • Snakes of the Agkistrodon Complex: A Monographic Review (co-author: Howard K. Gloyd ), Ssar Pubns, 1990: ISBN 0-9169842-0-6
  • The Reptiles of Virginia , Smithsonian Books, 1997, ISBN 1-5609875-4-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Short biography with photo ( Memento from February 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF file; 73 kB)
  2. ↑ Book Review ( Memento August 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English), Chicago Herpetological Society. Reprinted from the Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society [33 (2): 30-31, February 1998
  3. ↑ Novotny, Raymond J .: Roger Conant to turn 90 on May 6 . In: Herpetological Review; St. Louis Vol. 30, Issue 1, (Mar 1999): 10.
personal data
SURNAME Conant, Roger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Mamaroneck , New York
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 2003
Place of death Albuquerque