INTRODUCTION 

The Herpetology Conference, including the All Florida Herpetological Event, is an annual 
international meeting held in Florida, U.S.A. (https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology-
conference/home/). Walter Auffenburg (1928–2004) and Ray Ashton (1945–2010) were the 
original founders of the All Florida Herpetological Event. They along with professional 
herpetologists, students, and private citizens interested in amphibians and reptiles held their first 
meeting in 1978. All but one of the meetings (Miami) were held in Gainesville, FL, in 
association with the Florida Museum of Natural History of the University of Florida. Over the 
years it has attracted people from Florida, the Southeast and beyond, and from around the world. 
Recognition of the broad geographic coverage of the participants led to a change in its name by 
adding the “Herpetology Conference” to the title in 2002. The conference includes keynote and 
oral presentations, posters, a banquet, venders, and oral and silent auctions. The Reptile and 
Amphibian Conservation Corps (RACC) founded by Max Nickerson in 2002 underwrites the 
fiscal responsibilities for the meetings and manages a variety of conservation research projects. 
Since 2004 all board-approved herpetological funding has been transferred to the RACC Fund of 
the UF Foundation 501©(3) nonprofit organization. Nickerson also conceived publishing issues 
of the Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History (hereafter Bulletin) devoted to 
herpetological papers by attendees of past conferences. 

There have been three titles for the Bulletin. It began in 1956 as the Bulletin of the Florida 
State Museum, Biological Sciences Series. The title was changed to Bulletin of the Florida 
Museum of Natural History, Biological Sciences Series in 1990 (Vol. 35), and in 1995 (Vol. 37) 
it became the Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History. Previous issues contained 65 
papers on herpetological topics such as natural history, morphology, parasites, and fossils. The 
first herpetological paper in the Bulletin was by Richard Highton (1956. Systematics and 
variation of the endemic Florida snake genus Stilosoma 1:73–96). 

Amber Pitt edited the first issue of the Bulletin comprised papers on amphibians and 
reptiles by conference attendees (Volume 51, Number 4, 2012). These peer-reviewed papers 
were the effects of MS-222 on amphibian growth and behavior, population structure of 
hellbenders in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, population structure of snapping 
turtles in a northern Florida river, decline of turtle populations in an Ozark river, and movement 
ecology of Timber Rattlesnakes in South Carolina. The current issue (Volume 54, 2016) 
demonstrates a growing interest in publishing conference-related manuscripts in the Bulletin 
with a doubling in the number of papers. Peer-reviewed papers in this issue include: 1) a review 
of the cascade of events following deforestation on Ozark Hellbenders in Missouri; 2) two papers 
on introduced lizards in Florida, of the genera Leiolepis and Agama; 3) geographic variation in 
body condition of the American Alligator; 4) estuarine ecology of American Alligators; 5) a 
historical review of American Crocodile distribution in south Florida; 6) multi-species 
population structure of turtles in a spring-fed, northern Florida river; 7) assessment of diets for 
captive Amazon Yellow-spotted River Turtle; 8) genetic variation of two species of sea turtles in 
Oman; and 9) a critique of climate change models for sea turtles. We expect continued interest 
and plan to publish future issues on amphibians and reptiles by conference participants.  

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

I am grateful to Dr. Max Nickerson and Dr. Stan Trauth for agreeing to be guest editors for 
the manuscripts on which I am listed as an author. Numerous colleagues agreed to review the 



manuscripts pro bono submitted for consideration. I thank Y. Alfonso, L. Brandt, T. Campbell, 
M. Dodd, R. Elsey, M. Fuentes, J. Iverson, J. Johnston, C. Layman, F. Mazzotti, A. McKelvy, 
P.Meylan, V. Páez, R. Powell, J. Pramuk, T. Rainwater, A. Rees, M. Rochford, A. Rosenblatt, B. 
Shamblin, L. Smith, and T. Tucker for their time and expertise. Max Nickerson helped with 
selection of participant names who we initially queried about a submission from them. RACC 
provided partial funding for the printed copies of the Bulletin. 

 
Joseph C. Mitchell, Editor of Volume 54