in southern France (Var), that he had discovered, by chance, at the
end of the fifties. He owned a house in the center of the village, in
“Coppernic” street [sic], which was a preferred place for the holidays of his numerous family: Maxime and Françoise, his wife,
had six children, followed by nineteen grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren! Several members of this large family in their turn
settled in Collobrières. An early riser, the naturalist would often
take a walk in the hills of the Maures and the discovery of a treefrog
in the vegetation along a small stream, or of a tortoise first heard
in the bushes of the maquis, was always a new pleasure to him.
The scientist could not help from examining the shell of a snail, or
from reaping with large net casts a meadow full of orthopterans:
all the equipment, net, boxes of all kinds, and even machete (!),
was always ready in his great rucksack. The evils of age forced
him to limit progressively the length of these walks, to his great
sadness: Maxime would remain in the salon, sitting in his armchair, surrounded by books and his dear African masks, always
glad to receive a visitor, parent or friend, under the attentive look
of Françoise.
He will be regretted by all those who had the pleasure to share
his experience, benefit from his courses, or from his friendship
and his support to their own projects.
Herpetological Review, 2007, 38(4), 387–388.
© 2007 by Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
Gary L. Paukstis (1953–2007)
FREDRIC J. JANZEN
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
e-mail: fjanzen@iastate.edu
and
JOHN K. TUCKER
Center for Aquatic Ecology, Illinois Natural History Survey
Brighton, Illinois 62012, USA
Gary Paukstis, a
life-long naturalist,
died suddenly and
unexpectedly on 5
July 2007 in
Bellevue, Washington. Although
he worked in sales
of high-speed data
communications
equipment over the
past 25 years, Gary
nonetheless drew
much of his professional identity as a
scientist. He emphasized herpetological studies,
publishing extenFIG. 1. Gary Paukstis holding a Nerodia in Illisively on his re- nois in 1974.
search activities (his very first paper appeared in these pages 30
years ago [Paukstis 1977]) and contributing considerably to our
field (N = ~ 60 publications).
Gary Lynn Paukstis was born 1 February 1953, in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. He lived in this area, as well as in Kansas and Wisconsin, for six years before his family settled for a long stretch in
Hoffman Estates, Illinois. His father, Walter Paukstis, was a salesman and his mother, Edna Rosen Paukstis, was a piano teacher.
Gary is survived by both of his parents, as well as his older brother
Richard, his younger sister Donna, and their families. In addition
to his wife Diane Bills Paukstis, Gary is survived by his children:
Melissa, Hannah, and Christopher.
Beginning in 1971, Gary attended Illinois State University (ISU)
intending to major in Music. But doubts about employability other
than as a music teacher combined with a keen interest in biology
led him to take courses in the sciences at ISU. It was a comparative vertebrate anatomy course taught by noted herpetologist
Lauren Brown that inspired Gary to eventually change majors and
join Lauren’s fun group of students. Gary began as a volunteer
who helped look after herps in the Brown lab (Fig. 1), but gladly
accompanied the lab crew on herping adventures in Illinois and
Florida and attended notable social events held at the Brown ranchero.
Upon graduation from ISU with a B.S. in Biological Sciences
in 1975, Gary immediately joined the Brown lab formally to conduct graduate studies. During this time, Gary worked alongside,
and occasionally roomed with, a strong cadre of herpetologically
oriented students, including Richard Funk, Don Moll, and one of
us (JKT), among others. Gary’s M.S. work focused on variation
in the intercalary cartilage as an important character for frog taxonomy, but he also joined in with members of the lab to explore
all sorts of other interesting biological phenomena, primarily herpetological. Indeed, his years at ISU produced 10 publications on
topics ranging from herpetological range extensions to invertebrate paleobiology, including a particularly influential paper concerning optimal egg size in turtles (Tucker et al. 1978).
After obtaining his M.S. in Biological Sciences from ISU in
1978, Gary joined Gary Packard’s lab at Colorado State University (CSU) for Ph.D. studies. At CSU, Gary again struck up a number of productive collaborations in the Department of Zoology
with other graduate students (most particularly William Gutzke in
the Packard lab), leading to a series of significant publications,
including some of the earliest experimental work on water relations of turtle eggs and temperature-dependent sex determination.
Gary’s dissertation research explored the roles of environmental
variables in influencing the physiological ecology of turtle embryos and hatchlings in natural nests, yet he never completed his
Ph.D. However, it was a semester-long return to CSU in fall 1985
that initiated another long-time productive collaboration, this time
with a first-semester M.S. student in the Packard lab, the other
one of us (FJJ). It was largely under Gary’s influence that FJJ, an
eager but very naïve student, learned many of the key unwritten
rules of graduate school, scientific inquiry, and other important
aspects of scholarly enterprise. At the same time, this budding
friendship would prove crucial for maintaining Gary’s research
output.
Departing CSU in December 1985, Gary moved to northern Illinois to take a sales job with Okidata (and, subsequently, NEC
Herpetological Review 38(4), 2007
387
and, finally, Adtran) to be in the vicinity of his daughter Melissa.
FJJ followed suit less than two years later, beginning Ph.D. studies at the University of Chicago in summer 1987. This immediate
proximity initiated a rush of joint library, laboratory, and field research activities, initially focusing on aspects of sex-determining
mechanisms in reptiles. Our collaboration produced a number of
publications on this and other topics, including one of the top 20
most cited papers in the history of the Quarterly Review of Biology (Janzen and Paukstis 1991). We also undertook numerous
herpetological adventures, primarily locally in northern Illinois,
but also to the southern part of the state and to areas along the
Mississippi River. These trips allowed us to indulge in some other
shared passions, too: hunting, collecting baseball cards, listening
to great music, drinking beer, immersing in natural history, and
taking pictures (see http://www.garypaukstis.com for some of
these), not necessarily in that order of preference. It was on a late
1980s trip that Gary helped FJJ found his long-term ongoing field
site, known as Turtle Camp, in western Illinois. And it was on a
trip to southern Illinois in the early 1990s that Gary introduced
FJJ and JKT, generating 15+ years of a productive three-way research collaboration, including work on native gastropods and introduced zebra mussels (e.g., Paukstis et al. 1997) and a series of
continuing publications on the evolutionary ecology of early lifehistory stages of turtles (e.g., Tucker and Paukstis 1999).
Then in 1998, Gary and family accepted a transfer from Adtran
to take an equivalent sales position in the Seattle area. This move
resulted in a dramatic decrease in Illinois fieldwork, but ultimately
led to grander biological explorations and, in the end, to an important new chapter in his research activities and professional emphases. Gary and FJJ embarked on a series of major natural history adventures. Domestically, these trips emphasized the West
Coast (his sales region with Adtran) and included an anxious physical encounter with a coral snake (Micruroides euryxanthus) in
southern Arizona. Local medical personnel possessed neither antivenin nor correct knowledge of treatment, so the multihour drive
to Phoenix was nerve-wracking to say the least. Internationally,
these trips focused on Central and South America. Costa Rica was
the most frequent destination, although a near-kidnapping by guerillas in remote Colombia was perhaps the most memorable experience, plus at least one anuran (Osonophryne sp.) encountered in
Puracé National Park on that trip is almost certainly new to science (J. Savage, pers. comm., 7 December 2006).
Gary was just stepping into the next phase of his life, a return to
science on a near full-time basis. He had retired from Adtran in
2006 with the expectation of decades of increased scientific productivity. He had turned his attention, in particular, toward serving the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) and writing field
guides, activities that melded some of his favorite hobbies (exploring nature, taking pictures, working with people, etc.) with
his strong business acumen. It is a testament to his skills in all
these areas that he had already served on the Board of Visitors and
then been elected to the Board of Directors (serving as Vice Chairman of Marketing and Development) of OTS, and had nearly completed the first (Paukstis et al., in prep.) of several planned field
guides.
It was a great joy and honor to have known, and worked with,
Gary. He was a man of many talents and interests. Beyond being
intellectually creative and hard working, he possessed a keen, fre-
388
quently employed wit, no doubt fed by his love of silly movies
(the funniest of Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Monte Python,
along with such fare as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Wayne’s
World, Me, Myself, and Irene, The Three Amigos, etc.). Gary also
kept busy with numerous activities (some of which have already
been mentioned), including tickling keyboards, constructing the
Paukstis genealogy, playing tennis, spending time with his family,
and hanging out at his cabin on the Olympic Peninsula (complete
with a herp pond).
Gary would not have wanted a maudlin parting. Instead, we can
envision him telling us all to get on with it in his own inimitable
humorous style, likely quoting one of his very favorite movies,
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure:
“Be excellent to each other……and party on, dudes!”
We will miss Gary greatly. Party on, dude, wherever you are!
LITERATURE CITED
JANZEN, F. J., AND G. L. PAUKSTIS. 1991. Environmental sex determination
in reptiles: ecology, evolution, and experimental design. Quart. Rev.
Biol. 66:149–179.
PAUKSTIS, G. L. 1977. Geographic distribution: Sistrurus miliarius streckeri
(Western pygmy rattlesnake) in Missouri. Herpetol. Rev. 8:14.
––––––, F. J. JANZEN, AND J. K. TUCKER. 1997. Comparative survivorship
of sympatric native North American gastropods (Anguispira, Mesodon,
Physella, Pleurocera) and an introduced bivalve (Dreissena) exposed
to freezing temperatures. Veliger 40:67–70.
––––––, ––––––, O. VALVERDE, AND O. VARGAS. In preparation. Field Guide
to the Plants and Animals of La Selva.
TUCKER, J. K., R. S. FUNK, AND G. L. PAUKSTIS. 1978. The adaptive significance of egg morphology in two turtles (Chrysemys picta and Terrapene
carolina). Bull. Maryland Herpetol. Soc. 14:10–22.
––––––, AND G. L. PAUKSTIS. 1999. Post-hatching substrate moisture and
overwintering hatchling turtles. J. Herpetol. 33:608–615.
ZOO VIEW
Fourteen of my colleagues and friends have been instrumental
in my professional development and, through example and wise
counsel, have expanded my view of the unlimited possibilities
available for research, conservation biology, historical perspectives, and education within a zoo and aquarium environment. I
have been most fortunate and wish to take this opportunity to thank
them.
For nearly fifty years, Kraig Adler, Joseph T. Collins, and George
B. Rabb have supported my interest in zoos and stressed the potential of these institutions to be an important subset in herpetology. They encouraged me to become involved in many professional herpetological societies, especially SSAR. Adler’s unique
understanding of the history of herpetology served as a significant
model for my investigation of the evolution of zoos and aquariums.
For nearly forty years, Jonathan A. Campbell, William W. Lamar
and Barry L. Armstrong have supported my vocation, been generous in providing a wealth of specimens collected throughout Latin
America for the Dallas Zoo collection, and broadened my understanding of the herpetofauna in that region.
Herpetological Review 38(4), 2007