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The Mammals
of Texas - Online Edition Acknowledgments Special thanks and appreciation are due Dr. William B. Davis, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University, who kindly gave permission and encouraged me to update his 1974 version of Bulletin No. 41. Dr. Davis remains the senior author of this revised version because the primary contents of the work are those of his writing and interpretation. Dr. Davis has been a student of Texas mammals for more than 50 years and he rightfully deserves acclaim as the "father" of mammalogy in the State. My role has been to modernize the taxonomy, update the distribution maps, change the identification keys where appropriate, and otherwise make changes that reflect the current knowledge about mammalian conservation in Texas. In this regard, I have been aided by the following people who provided information, loaned specimens for study, or allowed me to examine collections under their care: the late J. Knox Jones, Jr., Clyde Jones, Robert J. Baker, Walter Dalquest, Frederick B. Stangl, Jr., James Scudday, Arthur Harris, Sarah Kerr, Mark Engstrom, Robert Dowler, Alan Chaney, Syd Anderson, Duane Schlitter, Bruce Patterson, Michael Mares, Michael Carlton, Donald Hoffmeister, Earl Zimmerman, Hugh Genoways, Terry Yates, John Baccus, James Patton, David Easterla, Kenneth Wilkins, Arthur Cleveland, John Darling, Dean Fisher, John Hafner, Brian Chapman, Robert F. Martin, Howard McCarley, Philip Myers, William E. Wilson, and Royal Suttkis. I also would like to thank the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for inviting me to revise Bulletin No. 41 and for the technical assistance of their staff. Several persons aided in the final stages of manuscript preparation. Dave Scarbrough, in particular, deserves special mention for working many long and tedious hours to assist with library work, prepare distribution maps, and draft revisions of the species accounts. Lisa Bradley edited and corrected the final version of the manuscript and prepared the final copies of the distribution maps. George Baumgardner assisted with listing all records of Texas mammals in the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection at Texas A&M University. Most of the photographs of mammals were taken by John Tveten using animals captured by me or by my graduate students. The photographs of bats were kindly provided by Dr. Merlin Tuttle, Science Director of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas. Other photographs came from the files of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The marine mammal illustrations were graciously provided by Pieter A. Folkens. Financial support for the project was graciously provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Foundation, the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University, and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station provided financial support for some of the field work and all the trips to museums and collections. Last, but certainly not least, I want to express my appreciation to two special groups of people. The first is the forty or so graduate students who have studied mammals with me over the past 20 years. They spent many hours in the field assisting with my studies of Texas mammals. The second group is the many wonderful and dedicated Texas landowners who kindly opened the gates of their farms and ranches, and in many cases the doors to their homes, to me and my students so that we could collect, observe, and study mammals on their land. It is to this latter group, to whom Texas owes so much for the conservation of its vast natural resources, that I dedicate this new revision of The Mammals of Texas. David J. Schmidly |
