PRESS-ENTERPRISE (Riverside, California) 07 April 08 La Sierra biologist dodges danger to find unknown reptiles (Laurie Lucas)
Move over, Indiana Jones.
You've got nothing on a Riverside field biologist.
Hard-core thrill junkie L. Lee Grismer has fallen off cliffs and crashed into sinkholes, broken bones, battled leeches, hosted intestinal worms and survived on rotten meat to capture hidden treasures all over the world.
The internationally renowned reptile and amphibian expert at La Sierra University has turned up almost 50 herpetological species previously unknown to the scientific world.
"I call him the Michael Jordan of the Biology Department," its chairman, Larry McCloskey, said. "He's in a class by himself in terms of scholarship, research and teaching. Because of his influence, biological preserves have been set aside in Third World countries, especially Malaysia."
On an expedition last summer with his 25-year-old son, Jesse, Grismer struck "herping" pay dirt when they discovered a new species of pit viper atop a small Vietnamese island, and a rock gecko (that will be named after Grismer) in caves in the Mekong Delta.
"You can't believe the rush when we're looking at a new line that no one has ever seen before," said Grismer, who lives in Temecula. "And after risking our lives with land mines in Cambodia, disease, king cobras, lions and tigers in the jungle, I will have the honor to describe this whole living thing that no one knew existed."
Grismer, 52, revels in the chase as much as in the rewards -- more than 8,000 tissue samples he has collected from his global excursions to remote regions in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Baja California.
Grismer is also partial to mammals. He shares his office/laboratory with two pets he has rescued, a half-blind, 4-year-old pit bull named Tank who'd been tortured, and a dingo pup from Cambodia named Khmai.
Colorful, buff and fearless with a penchant for profanities, Grismer takes pride in being compared to movie hero Indiana Jones. Instead of yelling "eureka!" while unearthing a new species, the reptile king admits he bellows "a string of expletives that would curl a drill sergeant's hair."
The perils of his treks would discourage even the most die-hard hikers. Grismer returned from Malaysia last week with two broken ribs and whiplash he suffered from falling off a cliff. But that's hardly enough to prevent his rigorous, six-day-a-week workouts in the campus gym, a requirement for students who join his adventures.
Grismer said he hasn't lost anyone yet, but some of his student release forms have requested an address where to ship the body.
The dangers are considerable.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," the author of two tomes and star of an Animal Planet special said with a grin. "In 25 years, I've never turned back from a trip."
This, from a scientist who had leeches crawl into his urethra. He has lost 24 pounds in 28 days from pinworms, which he cured by seeing a veterinarian, ostensibly to get pills for his "175-pound dog." While rappelling down a ravine into a sinkhole, he cracked his kneecap, which became infected from a dirty needle used for draining fluid. After swallowing a cocktail of antibiotics, he was OK in 24 hours.
Grismer and his students waded two miles up a Cambodian river to dodge forgotten land mines, only to sidestep foot-wide bird-eating spiders. Guided by former members of Pol Pot's murderous Khmer Rouge army, the research team crossed Vietnamese jungles and Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains.
"The scariest guy took live chickens, skinned and killed them," Grismer said. "Then with his knife in hand, he'd say the only phrase in English he knew: 'Excuse me, sir, I am through now. Would you like coffee, tea or fresh milk?' "
Typically, Grismer and company haul chopped beef, chicken and pork in plastic bags. Without refrigeration, the meat rots by the end of the expedition. So they'd boil it in oil to kill germs, add white rice and douse with soy sauce "to mask the decomposition smell," Grismer said. "Then we'd hold our breath, swallow and plug our nose."
Grismer, who grew up in Corona del Mar, began nabbing lizards as a toddler. "My parents tried to dissuade me," he said, "but to this day, this exact same feeling of curiosity, adventure and fascination is still with me whenever I catch something."
Although on sabbatical, Grismer drives to campus every day from home. "He's incredibly effective in mentoring students," Biology Department Chairman McCloskey said. "I've watched them blossom into remarkable scientists of their own."
One of them, Jim McGuire, 40, a professor of herpetology at UC Berkeley, switched from finance to reptiles after listening to one of Grismer's seminars at San Diego State. "Young guys who fancy themselves to be intrepid field types or who aspire to this ideal often look to Lee as the prototypical field biologist," McGuire wrote in an e-mail.
Grismer's daughter Lacy, a 23-year-old psychology major at UC Riverside, shed 40 pounds in preparation for one of her dad's trips to Cambodia. "He's part giant kid, part encyclopedia," she said. "I always hated science, but his stories intrigued me enough to go with him. It was really, really fun and I found out we had a lot in common."
Next month Grismer is off to Turkey, where he plans to catch and photograph vipers on Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark supposedly came to rest. "Wouldn't it be ironic," he said with a sly smile, "if I found the proverbial serpent?"
La Sierra biologist dodges danger to find unknown reptiles