AMERICAN-STATESMAN (Austin, Texas) 10 July 06 Reptile roadkill? He rounds it up, for research
Retired herpetologist studies turtles and snakes, squashed or not. (Jennifer Barrios)
Georgetown: Not many folks like to stick around when the rubber meets the reptile.
But Jim Christiansen sees opportunity in roadkill, not a mess.
Christiansen started the Sun City Reptile and Amphibian mapping project shortly after he and his wife moved to the retirement community in January. He's a retired herpetologist, which is a fancy way of saying he studies snakes and turtles and other creepy, crawly things that frequent the ponds and sunning rocks of Williamson County.
The project is designed to find out whether Sun City's planned community, which includes natural areas along with well-manicured golf courses, allows local reptile and amphibian populations to thrive.
"As urban areas expand, the natural areas are destroyed at an incredible rate," Christiansen said. "If you can find a way to have the urban areas and keep the natural areas, that's a win-win situation."
Christiansen gathers turtles, snakes and other animals that turn up squashed on the roads and preserves them to create a snapshot of the animal life in Sun City.
Gary Newman, division president for Sun City Texas, said Sun City officials are considering asking Christiansen to become a consultant, but he wasn't sure how Christiansen's services would be used or whether he would be paid.
It's too early to tell whether Sun City has been successful in maintaining its animal population. Christiansen has nearly 80 reptiles — some flattened into two dimensions by tires, others killed by more manual means.
Last week, several lay coiled on a cookie sheet in Christiansen's garage, including a Texas rat snake that had been dispatched by a hoe at the hands of a terrified homeowner who mistook it for a rattlesnake.
"They coil and strike and do a pretty good imitation of a rattlesnake," Christiansen said of the nonpoisonous reptile, which had deep gashes along its side from the farm tool.
"Poisonous snakes are pretty rare here," he said.
Most of the time, his neighbors call to tell him where to find roadkill, rather than scraping it off the asphalt and delivering it themselves.
Christiansen recently became a research associate with the University of Texas' Texas Memorial Museum in Austin, which will end up with the Texas rat snake and the other specimens he collects.
Right now, the snakes, turtles and lizards Christiansen has delivered are stored together in jars of ethanol, but soon they will be separated and classified and will become part of the more than 65,000-specimen library.
Christiansen isn't paid for his work, but the university does supply him with scalpels and the formaldehyde mixture used to preserve the specimens.
The project eventually will produce a series of maps showing the distribution of species in Sun City that Christiansen hopes researchers and urban planners will find useful in designing urban spaces with nature in mind.
"They'll show what natural areas are contributing to survival and how to perpetuate as many different species of animals as possible in an active human community," Christiansen said.
Travis LaDuc, assistant curator of herpetology at the Texas Natural History Collections, which is part of the Texas Memorial Museum, said there aren't many people gathering specimens in Williamson County, and Christiansen's portrait of animal life in the area probably will prove useful.
"I think it's really neat that someone is taking advantage of living in a different spot and taking a survey of what's living around them," LaDuc said. "And these specimens will be available to researchers worldwide."
Reptile roadkill? He rounds it up, for research