Robert Cyril Stebbins

Dr. ROBERT C. STEBBINS is a Professor Emeritus of Zoology and Curator Emeritus of Herpetology in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also an artist, a musician, a husband; a father, a teacher, and a whole lot more. Perhaps he is best known among herpetologists for his influential Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians in the Peterson Field Guide series (Stebbins, 1966, 1985, 2003), with intricate details on natural history and the beauty of his hand-painted illustrations. There is, however, a lot more to Robert Stebbins, whose close friends and colleagues call him Bob, than many seem to know. Bob Stebbins was raised on a farm, grew up during The Great Depression, and received his college education during World War II. He studied biogeography before it was understood that the continents move, and he studied speciation during...