ROBERT POWELL is professor of biology at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri, and a research associate at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum in Lawrence. He has written hundreds of scientific articles and notes (many with student coauthors) and is coauthor or coeditor of seven books, including A Key to the Herpetofauna of the Continental United States and Canada (1998, 2nd edition 2012; with Joseph T. Collins and Errol D. Hooper).