Dusty Rhoads

Dusty Rhoads has had a lifelong interest in reptiles. Like most academic herpetologists, he kept many species of reptiles and amphibians as a youth, starting at the age of five, and hatched his first herp, a Leopard Gecko, at the age of 15. As a herpetoculturist and naturalist, he has focused on the genus Bogertophis -- the Trans-Pecos and Baja Ratsnakes -- for the past decade.

After high school, he worked as a veterinary technician at small and exotic animal hospitals, and he attended Brigham Young University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Integrative Biology. While at BYU, he also worked in the BYU Evolutionary Genetics lab and as a curatorial assistant in the Reptiles and Amphibians Collection of the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum.

Dusty did graduate-level field and laboratory work in the Department of Biology at Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) studying the evolution, biogeography, phylogeography, and conservation of reptiles and amphibians. He has also worked as an environmental consultant for the state-listed Timber Rattlesnake and Northern Copperhead in New Jersey. He is a native of Galveston County, Texas and currently lives in the Dallas area with his son.