photo from https://www.drmartinwilliams.com/lasthunt-html/
We are saddened to note the passing of Skip Lazell, who made seminal contributions to the understanding of anole diversity, biogeography and many other topics. We will especially miss his regular commentary, always in a very supportive way, on many Anole Annal posts.
According to Numi Mitchell at the Conservation Agency, “Skip died on Friday, 30 June 2023. He had Parkinson’s and died quietly of pneumonia after many happy years of retirement and tender care from Wenhua Lu, his wife. There will likely be a memorial service at some point, but nothing is planned at the moment.”
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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Kurt Schwenk
Jonathan, thanks for the notice. I didn’t know Skip well at all, but I always appreciated his opinion. He was an old school naturalist and once called me a “thought Nazi” because of my advocacy of cladistic classification/taxonomy back in the day, though I was more amused than upset (feelings were very strong in the early days of phylogenetics!). At other times he was very kind to me and always interesting.
Gianna Coppola
Rest in peace, Skip.
Kevin de Queiroz
Rest in pease, Skip.
I’ve been referring to Skip’s papers on Lesser Antillean anoles and Anolis electrum repeatedly during the past week.
Armando Pou
This is very sad news. Skip was always quick to respond to any of my questions. In addition to losing his great insight and knowledge on Anoles, he was genuinely a nice person. He will be missed. Rest in peace.
Peter Uetz
Skip seems to have been a modest guy. The emails I got were always from “hq@theconservationagency.org”, so it seems he WAS the “Conservation Society”.
The Reptile Database has 57 papers by Skip but there are certainly many more. He has described 15 species and 14 subspecies of reptiles. Three species are named after him. That’s quite an achievement!
Theresa Monaghan
I am sorry to hear . I will miss his presence on this important site.
Tom Schoener
RIP Skip. An amazing presence in Ernest Williams’ lab when I was an undergrad at Harvard in the sixties — yes that long ago. Most of the other memories of Skip I can’t put into email, but he was a “character” to say the least!
Niel Wright
Although he was a teacher when I was a student at the Palfrey Street School in Watertown, Mass. 1968-71, he was, actually, my best friend while I was there. His strong recommendation was one of the reasons why I got into Harvard. I remember him with gratitude.