Mike Dorcas is an associate professor of biology at Davidson College and the author of several books on amphibians and reptiles. Whit Gibbons is a professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books, most recently Turtles: The Animal Answer Guide, also published by Johns Hopkins. Gibbons and Dorcas coauthored three other books, Snakes of the Southeast, Frogs and Toads of the Southeast, and North American Watersnakes.