Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 30, Number 11;   November, 2003

Gambelia wislizenii (Baird and Girard, 1852) - Long-nosed Leopard Lizard

by Edward O. Moll, Adjunct Professor
School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona

Gambelia wislizenii is a taxonomic oddity comprising a double patronym. The generic name honors William Gambel, an assistant curator at the prestigious Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The specific epithet honors Adolph Wislizenus, an adventurous physician from St. Louis. Herein we will delve into the history of how the names of these two very different 19th century naturalists came to be linked on the scientific name of a feisty, western lizard. The Long-nosed leopard lizard was first described in 1852 by Spencer F. Baird (Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution) and Charles Girard (Baird's chief assistant) in their review of the reptiles collected during the exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake lead by Howard Stansbury. However, the type specimen had nothing to do with the Stansbury Expedition; rather it had been collected near Santa Fe, New Mexico, around the time of the Mexican War. It was named Crotaphytus wislizenii in honor of the army surgeon who collected it, Friedrich Wislizenus and was figured in plate III. Later that same year Baird and Girard described another similar lizard, as Crotaphytus gambelii. This specimen had been collected by William Gambel on his last trip to California, but no precise locality data were available. By 1859 in the report, Reptiles of the Boundary, Baird had apparently decided that C. wislizenii and C. gambelii were the same species and listed the latter in the synonomy of Crotaphytus wislizenii. However, within this same publication in a short discussion under Crotaphytus reticulatus, Baird stated that reticulatus was "More closely related to Crotaphytus collaris than to Crotaphytus (Gambelia) wislizenii." It is unclear whether Baird was indicating that wislizenii was a different subgroup from other Crotaphytus but this is how Hobart M. Smith interpreted usage of the name, Gambelia, in parentheses. In his 1946 Handbook of Lizards, Smith separated Gambelia from Crotaphytus. His source for the name Gambelia was the aforementioned usage by Spencer Baird. Thus Gambelia wislizenii become a lizard burdened to carry two patronyms. The pendulum of taxonomic nomenclature continues to swing back and forth between Gambelia and Crotaphytus, but for now, the former is the accepted genus for Leopard lizards. Today, the genus Gambelia includes two additional species: the Blunt-nosed leopard lizard (G. sifa) and Cope's leopard lizard (G. copeii).

Frederick Adolph Wislizenus was born in Koenigsee, Schwarzburg-Rudolstady, Germany in 1810. Emigrating to the United States in 1835 following an unsuccessful student uprising in which he participated, Wislizenus settled in Illinois near St. Louis and set up a medical practice. However, this physician was not one to let grass grow between his toes. Succumbing to wanderlust, he joined a cadre of fur traders traveling the Oregon Trail in 1839. Wislizenus accompanied them as far as Idaho; then he joined another party that traveled through Colorado to Bent's Fort on the Santa Fe Trail, and from there he returned to St. Louis. A result of this journey was a book entitled A Journey to The Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839. While not a confirmed naturalist, Wislizenus had made the acquaintance of the celebrated botanist George Englemann who had instilled in him the importance of making collections and natural history observations when traveling. Apparently no herps were collected on this journey. However, he did describe a "horned frog" that he correctly identified as a lizard and which appears to have been Phrynosoma cornutum.

By 1846, Wislizenus was ready to go again. Joining a group of traders, he traveled to Santa Fe and then on to Chihuahua. This was a troubled time, just before the outbreak of the Mexican War, and the U.S. Army was suspicious that any party of traders heading from Mexico might be carrying arms. According to one account, Wislizenus's group was pursued by an attachment of soldiers led by Colonel Stephen Kearney, commander of the Army of the West, but they reached Mexico safely. However, it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, for they were immediately taken as prisoners of war by the Mexicans and were interred at a camp in the Sierra Madre Occidental. Apparently Wislizenus was not considered to be too much of a threat to Mexican security as he was permitted to wander up to two leagues away from the prison camp, in order to collect plants, many of which are still rarities in herbaria. Eventually, he was rescued by a company of U.S. troops. Indebted to the army for the rescue, he then joined them for a time as a surgeon before returning to St. Louis. Sometime during this adventure, Wislizenus collected the type specimen of the Long-nosed leopard lizard. His adventures on this trip were later published in an 1848 government report entitled Tour Through Northern Mexico, which included a section by George Englemann, describing the unusual plants collected. Following this adventure, Wislizenus married and settled down in St. Louis. He became a respected pillar of the community helping to found the Missouri Historical Society and the Academy of Science of St. Louis. Scientists named several new species after him. In addition to the Long-nosed leopard lizard, Asa Gray, the famous Harvard botanist, added the legume, Dafea wislizeni, and Augustine de Candolle, the Swiss botanist, described an oak as Quercus wislizenii. Presumably, these scientists thought highly of Wislizenus. However, one need wonder about his mentor, George Englemann, who named Wislizenia refracta, the jackass clover in his honor.

Born in 1821, William Gambel was another adventurer, but with more naturalist training than Wislizenus. His was an aborted but productive career. At 19 he trained under the renowned naturalist Thomas Nuttall in Philadelphia. By 1841 Nuttall decided Gambel was ready to procure specimens for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and encouraged him to join a parry of trappers bound for the southern Rockies. They followed the Santa Fe trail to New Mexico, traveled through Colorado and finally reached San Pedro, California. While on the coast, Gambel obtained employment as a personal secretary to several U.S. naval commanders. In this capacity, he was able to sail up and down the California Coast and collect whenever he had shore leave. Gambel was most into ornithology but Nuttall had taught him the importance of general collecting and all of the techniques needed to preserve specimens. He collected birds, plants and, of course, herps. He returned to Philadelphia in 1845 by sailing round the Horn and immediately set to work describing his excellently preserved bird collections. He was given the title of assistant curator at the prestigious Academy. However, Gambel made what proved to be a fatal error. He gained the ire of John Cassin, his superior in the Academy, by naming an auklet in his honor, only to find that it had been previously named by a German naturalist in 1911. Without Cassin's support, Gambel saw that he would never advance to curator at the Academy, and thus set out on a new course in life. He qualified to practice medicine, married, and decided to settle in San Francisco. Sadly, Gambel never completed his trip to San Francisco. After crossing the treacherous, snow-covered Sierra Nevadas in mid winter, he stopped to aid sick miners at the Rio de las Plumas. Here he contracted typhoid fever and died at 26 years of age.

Despite his young age, Gambel's scientific contributions were substantial. Based on his publications, he was the authority on birds of the West Coast at the time of his death. In addition to the Leopard Lizards, several organisms that he collected have been named in his honor. Among these are Gambel's quail (Callipella gambelii), the Mountain chickadee (Parus gambeli), Gambel's oak (Quercus gambelii), and the Showy island snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa).

So we conclude that while two patronyms may be lot of baggage to lug around, the Long-nosed leopard lizard can be justly proud of being christened in honor of two such distinguished pioneers in the natural history of Western United States.

SOURCES
Adler, Kraig (ed.) 1978. Herpetological explorations of the great American west. Vol. 1. Arno Press, New York.
Baird, Spencer F. and Charles Girard. 1852. Reptiles. Pp. 336 - 353 in Howard Stansbury. Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt lake of Utah. Philadelphia
Baird, Spencer F. and Charles Girard. 1852. Characteristics of some new reptiles in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia.
Baird, Spencer F. 1859. Reptiles of the Boundary. Pp. 1-35 in United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. Washington DC
Evans, Howard, E. 1993. Pioneer Naturalists. Henry Holt Co., New York
Ewan, Joseph, and Nesta Dunn Ewan. 1981. Rocky Mountain naturalists. Dr. W. Junk, Boston.
Fischer, Dan, l. 2001. Early southwest ornithologists. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Smith, Hobart, M. 1946. Handbook of lizards. Comstock Publishing Co. Ithaca, NY.