April 17 Presentation: Herping with the Taliban in Afghanistan

Ted Pappenfus, UC Berkeley, will share his experiences as a herpetologist in Afghanistan at the April 17 meeting of the Tucson Herpetological Society.

Ted is a research herpetologist at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. For over 25 years his field work has included expeditions to arid regions in West Asia, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa in Somalia and Eritrea. He tries to visit historic type localities to collect fresh specimens and tissues for DNA and morphological studies of amphibians and reptiles from these countries.

In the year 2000, he contacted the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and asked them if he could come to Afghanistan to “catch some lizards”. Ted was surprised how willing the Taliban leadership was have him “come catch lizards”.

It took several months for the Taliban to arrange the trip. He was met at the Pakistan border town Quetta, smuggled across the border and driven to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden was living in Kandahar at the same time Ted was there, but due to conflicting schedules they never met.

Where:
Tucson City Council Ward 3
1510 East Grant Rd.

Please join us for a pre-meeting gathering:
When: at 5:30 PM at Rubio’s
Where: 2906 N Campbell

---