By Darla Martin Tucker

To avoid forgotten land mines, La Sierra University reptile expert Lee Grismer and his son, Jesse, waded far up a Cambodian river last August hunting new species.

Their wet, two-mile hike took place during a weeks-long trek through remote Southeast Asian rainforests most foreigners would fear to enter. The duo dodged foot-wide, bird-eating spiders and pulled blood-sucking leeches from their skin. They traversed Vietnamese jungles and Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, the prior stronghold of murderous Cambodian dictator Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army. Former Khmer Rouge soldiers, wearing their iconic red headscarves, served as the Grismer’s guides.

“It’s the wild, wild west. There are no laws out there,” Lee Grismer said.

The team’s perilous venture paid off. The herpetologist and his 25-year-old son, a La Sierra alumnus, returned to California, bringing with them the scientific equivalent of gold: they discovered between six and eight new species, including a small, brown pit viper adorned with jagged, black stripes and a golden brown gecko with white stripes and dark green eyes.

Zootaxa, an international journal for animal taxonomists, published an article Feb. 29 announcing the pit viper, whose scientific name is Cryptelytrops honsonensis. Magnolia Press in Auckland, New Zealand publishes Zootaxa. The journal will also soon post an article announcing the gecko discovery, Grismer said. The gecko will be named, after the adventurous scientist who helped discovered it.

The father-son species detective team found the pit viper on top of a small Vietnamese island, which they reached by hopping from one grimy wooden boat to another. They decided to explore the patch of land based on the habitat of area islands. “Why is it [viper] there? … It’s a lineage of life nowhere else on the planet,” Grismer said.

The Grismers, together with a Vietnamese colleague, discovered the gecko in caves in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam.

They came upon another new gecko species following their two-mile, nighttime river wade in Cambodia. Grismer and his team often hunt creatures at night as well as during the day.

Herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians. When not on the prowl for new animals, Grismer teaches herpetology, vertebrate natural history, anatomy and physiology at La Sierra University and advises students.

He is a member of several societies and in 2002 published a 409-page tome titled “Amphibians and Reptiles of Baja California, Including Its Pacific Islands and the Islands in the Sea of Cortes.” The book, available through Amazon.com, includes detailed photography and information about species and their environments. It derives from 22 years of field research in remote areas.

Grismer has discovered upwards of 40 new animals over the last eight years, mainly in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Baja California, Mexico. He has amassed more than 8,000 tissue samples in a lab freezer awaiting analysis.

Last summer’s trip to Asian jungles resulted in the acquisition of about 300 specimens of 40 to 50 different species including frogs, legless amphibians called apodans, turtles, lizards and snakes.

Grismer is exploring portions of Malaysia through March and plans to travel to Turkey in May for a trip up the famed Mt. Ararat in search of vipers. That month he will also trek through Cambodia then travel to China in June. “I haven’t gotten the last half of the year planned yet, but Thailand and Burma are on the horizon,” Grismer said in an interview Feb. 15.

Grismer has traversed the world for years in search of animals never before known to the modern world, and often takes La Sierra students and son, Jesse, with him. He plots jungle trails by talking to local scientists and villagers and heads into remote regions that have never been explored, or that are “so dangerous no wants to go there. With careful planning and appropriate precautions we can access those areas successfully,” he said.

“In these remote areas most everybody hunts for food so they know the area very well. We tell them the kinds of things we’re looking for in terms of species and habitats and pay them to stay with us as guides and to avoid the mine fields,” Grismer said.

Grismer also hires villagers to carry gear “so we can stay in the bush for extended periods of time. Often we eat the food they hunt for us and the plants they gather. Gets a little gamey now and then -- more now than then -- but it’s just part of the trip,” the La Sierra herpetologist said.

“People don’t realize what some field biologists will do [to study earth’s species],” Grismer said.

He believes delving into Earth’s remote places to find new animal life will help save the planet’s biodiversity. “If we know something about our history, we can predict with some degree of certainty the trajectory of our future,” Grismer said.

“Life on this planet is a giant interlocking puzzle and all the pieces either directly or indirectly depend on each other. If we lose one piece of the puzzle, then all the other pieces must adjust accordingly. If we begin to lose too many pieces, then the rest of the pieces (species) will lack the ability to make such large adjustments and the ecosystem will collapse,” he said.

Grismer’s adventures grabbed the attention of cable television network, Animal Planet, a division of the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring, Md. In 2004, Animal Planet filmed Lee and Jesse Grismer searching Malaysia’s unexplored rainforest islands for a venomous, brilliant blue and highly elusive pit viper. The hour-long television special, “Reptile Kings: Search for the Lost Viper,” premiered in 2005 and has had numerous repeat showings. It last aired on Animal Planet on Feb. 29.

La Sierra biology students will begin analyzing Grismer’s newly discovered pit viper and gecko this spring when they fire up new DNA sequencing equipment. The university purchased the equipment last fall with the help of two grants obtained by La Sierra biology Professor Lee Greer.

The students’ first assignments with the equipment will involve genetic analysis of Grismer’s animals to detect the creatures’ ties to other species and populations.

“Through its DNA, we will find its closest relative,” Grismer said. Uncovering such information can help scientists better understand planet Earth, he said.

The arrival of the LI-COR 4300 DNA Analyzer and a number crunching, snail-shaped super computer means Grismer can study the genetics of his new species on campus. Previously he shipped tissue samples to the labs of colleagues and friends.

“We’ve never had DNA sequencing at La Sierra,” Grismer said. “We’re going to make some serious inroads.”

Grismer estimates use of the sequencing equipment will push the university’s production of scientific papers from an average of 13 papers a year to approximately 20. “These projects will terminate in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals,” such as Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution, Systematic Biology and the Journal of Herpetology, Grismer said.

The availability of such high-tech apparatus may also mean additional treks into the wild to find more animals. “Oh yeah,” said Grismer. “This is what I live for.”

PR Contact: Larry Becker
Executive Director of University Relations
La Sierra University
Riverside, California
951.785.2460 (voice)