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PROGRESS IN SCIENCE is achieved by an understanding of the past as well as of the present. An awareness of historical trends leading to contemporary generalizations inevitably deepens one's appreciation of the nature and limits of those generalizations. This book addresses the current status of studies on lizard ecology but has a historical basis traceable to the publication in 1967 of a volume edited by the late WW Milstead, Lizard Ecology: A Symposium (Columbia: University of Missouri Press). That volume, which was based on a symposium held in 1965, demonstrated to a broad audience that lizards are often model organisms for ecological studies: many species are abundant, easily observed, low in mobility, easy to capture, and hardy in captivity. Moreover, several key papers provided an intellectual standard and a framework that have helped to guide and stimulate subsequent research.

During the past …