Roger Conant (herpetologist)

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Roger Conant (May 6, 1909–December 19, 2003) was an American herpetologist, author, educator and conservationist. He was Director Emeritus of the Philadelphia Zoo and Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico. He is one of the most well known herpetologists in the United States because he wrote one of the first comprehensive field guides for North American reptiles in 1958 entitled: Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the Eastern United States.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his father died when he was young. When he was a teenager he took a job at a local zoo to help his mother make ends meet, which, along with participating in scouting, began his life-long passion for reptiles. He moved to Toledo, Ohio in 1929 and worked as Curator of Reptiles, and later General Curator at the Toledo Zoo from 1929 to 1935. In 1935 he returned to Philadelphia and became the Curator of Reptiles at the Philadephia Zoo. He was president of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums from 1946 to 1947 and helped found the Philadelphia Herpetological Society in 1952. He was promoted to Director of the Philadephia Zoo in 1967. He retired from the zoo in 1973 and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he became a professor at the University of New Mexico. He continued to do research and writing. Over his career he wrote some 240 scientific papers, and 12 books. He died of cancer in Albuquerque on December 19, 2003.

Conant is credited with describing numerous new species of snake, including several species of water snake (of the genus Nerodia) as well as several species of garter snake (of the genus Thamnophis).

[edit] Selected bibliography

Peterson's Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the Eastern United States, 1958
A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians: Eastern and Central North America (with Joseph T. Collins), 1958/1975: Houghton Mifflin (P), ISBN 0-395-19977-8
Snakes of the Agkistrodon Complex: A Monographic Review (with Howard K. Gloyd), ]]), Ssar Pubns, 1990, ISBN 0-916984-20-6
Autobiography: A Field Guide to the Life and Times of Roger Conant, Canyonlands Publishing Group, 1997, ISBN 0-9657446-0-4
The Reptiles of Virginia, Smithsonian Books, 1997, ISBN 1-56098-754-5
Reptiles and Amphibians (Peterson First Guides), Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999: ISBN 0-395-97195-0
North American Watersnakes: A Natural History, University of Oklahoma Press, 2004: ISBN 0-8061-3599-9