Friday, May 17: The Secret Lives of Snakes
Free lecture and book promotion with Dr. Emily Taylor
Co-sponsored by UC Sedgwick Reserve
Western diamond-backed rattlesnake. Photo by Spencer Riffle.
This live and Zoom presentation took place Friday, May 17, 2024, at UC Sedgwick Reserve, Tipton House.
To view the Zoom recording, click the link: The Secret Lives of Snakes
Dr. Emily Taylor. Courtesy photo.
Join us at the Sedgwick Reserve for a fun evening celebrating the snakes of California! Dr. Emily Taylor and her students will greet you with the friendly Cal Poly ambassador snakes as you arrive. Emily will give a presentation entitled, “The Secret Lives of Snakes,” with stories of snake encounters from her 25 years of studying these scaly animals around the world. These stories will be brought to life with beautiful photographs and movies of snakes, including footage obtained from recent advances in technology that Emily and her students are using to spy on snakes and learn about their amazing secret lives. In celebration of the release of her book, California Snakes and How to Find Them, published by Heyday Press, Emily will punctuate the presentation with excerpts from the book on our state’s bounty of legless creatures. The book will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Emily Taylor is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, where she conducts research on the physiology, ecology, and conservation biology of California reptiles and amphibians with her students. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Biology from Arizona State University. California Snakes and How to Find Them is her first popular science book, though she has been a biology textbook author for many years. She lives in Atascadero with her husband Steve and their menagerie of rescue animals. Follow her on social media @snakeymama.
