the.com/herpetology
the science of loving things that most people sprint away from.
means The branch of zoology devoted to the study of reptiles and amphibians — snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and their cold-blooded kin.
from From Greek 'herpeton,' meaning 'creeping thing' or 'crawling animal,' built on the verb 'herpein,' 'to creep' — plus the familiar '-logy,' 'study of.' So at root it is literally 'the study of things that creep,' a 19th-century scientific coinage that quietly enshrines the very slither most people instinctively back away from. The same crawling Greek root may be a distant cousin of Latin 'serpere,' which gave us 'serpent.'
- name origin
- From Greek herpein, to creep or crawl
- covers both
- Studies reptiles and amphibians together
- venom hunters
- Researchers milk snakes to make antivenom
- new species
- Hundreds of reptiles described every year
- frog crisis
- Amphibians are Earth's most endangered vertebrates