author

Charles J. Cole

A herpetologist best known for studying whiptail lizards, he wrote clearly about one of nature’s strangest reproductive stories: vertebrates that can reproduce without males. His work connects museum science, evolution, and the surprising lives of reptiles.

1 Audiobook

Morphological Variation in a Population of the Snake, Tantilla gracilis Baird and Girard

Morphological Variation in a Population of the Snake, Tantilla gracilis Baird and Girard

by Charles J. Cole, Laurence M. Hardy

About the author

Charles J. Cole, also known as Charles James "Jay" Cole, was a U.S. herpetologist. Sources identify him as a curator in the Department of Herpetology and Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and his published work focused heavily on lizard systematics and evolution.

His research is closely tied to whiptail lizards, including species and species complexes in the genus Cnemidophorus. Bibliographic records show a long run of scientific publications on taxonomy, chromosomes, hybrid origins, and parthenogenesis, including collaborations that described new taxa and revisited relationships within these reptiles.

He also wrote for a broader audience. A Scientific American author page credits Charles J. Cole with writing about parthenogenesis in vertebrates, helping bring an unusual area of reptile biology to general readers in a direct and accessible way.