Mr. Eric Munscher
July’s featured scientist: Mr. Eric Munscher.
Eric Munscher is a Herpetologist and Ecologist at SWCA’s Houston, Texas office. His academic career includes an extensive background in herpetology, field biology, ecology, comparative anatomy and physiology.
During his undergraduate career, he took four credits in tropical biology in Belize for 31 days. During that time period he participated in population studies on the Giant Mexican Musk Turtle and on the common Brown Basilisk; also while down in Belize, Mr. Munscher participated in the capture and identification of 13 species of snakes including two venomous species fer-de-lance (Bothrops asper) and a species of coral snake (Micrurus).
Later on in his undergraduate career he became part of a long term mark and recapture population study on semi–aquatic turtles at Wekiwa Springs State Park in central Florida. There he took seven credits of field biology associated with this study and eventually became the teaching assistant during the 2003–2004 spring semesters. Late in 2004, the Wekiwa Springs study was passed onto him by the professor who started it for the purposes of future sampling. Mr. Munscher has procured permits and amended permits to add additional site studies including a new possible marking method for soft shell species concerning the use of a permanent numbered tattoo. To this date 2,487 turtles of 8 different species have been marked.
After graduation in 2004, Mr. Munscher was hired by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as a summer field technician helping in the 2004 field season of a long term Diamondback Terrapin population study in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Also in 2004, he accepted a position at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville studying the over predation on Diamondback Terrapins caused by mesopredators such as the raccoon. Mr. Munscher has also performed various necropsy studies on raccoons as a part of his master’s thesis and on several exotic fish species including the Armored Catfish from Brazil, Tilapia, and the Hoplo catfish.
Mr. Munscher was hired by the University of North Florida and the Nature Conservancy in 2006 to perform a year long herptefuana comparison study at Pumpkin Hill Creek State Preserve and Tiger Point Preserve. During that year Mr. Munscher identified 29 species of reptiles and amphibians including 9 species of snakes of which 2 were venomous (Dusky pygmy rattle snake and the cotton mouth) between the two preserves.
Click here to view a PDF of one of Mr. Munscher’s Peer-reviewed Publications.
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