Dr. James Ray Dixon is Professor Emeritus and Curator Emeritus of Amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...

s and Reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

s at the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection at Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...

. His main research focus has been the natural history of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 amphibians and reptiles and he has authored numerous field guides and scientific papers on the subject. He has also been honored by having a species of lizard named for him, the Gray Checkered Whiptail, or Cnemidophorus dixoni

Cnemidophorus dixoni

The Gray Checkered Whiptail is a species of lizard native to the United States in southern New Mexico and western Texas, and northern Mexico. It was once considered a subspecies of the Common Checkered Whiptail, Cnemidophorus tesselatus, but was later granted full species status. It is one of many...

.

Education

Dixon attained his bachelor of science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 from Howard Payne University

Howard Payne University

Howard Payne University is a four-year private university located in Brownwood, Texas.Currently the university enrolls 1,400 full-time students. Howard Payne is known for the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom, its Music program and its Christian Studies program...

, and his masters degree and PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 from Texas A&M University.

Career

Dixon served as Curator of Reptiles at the Ross Allen Reptile Institute from 1954 to 1955, and as an Associate Professor of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M from 1959 until 1961. From 1961 until 1965 he was an Associate Professor of Wildlife Management at New Mexico State University

New Mexico State University

New Mexico State University at Las Cruces , is a major land-grant university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States...

and served as a consultant to the New Mexico state Game and Fisheries department. From 1965 until 1967 he was Curator of Herpetology at the Life Sciences Division at the Los Angeles County Museum in California. In 1971 he returned to Texas to become a professor at Texas A&M University, teaching Wildlife and Fisheries Science. He published his first Texas field guide, Amphibians and Reptiles of Texas in 1987.

External links

• Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection