Terry L. Vandeventer is a herpetologist who led the reptile department at the Jackson Zoological Park from 1976 to 1981. He later founded the Living Reptile Museum, a live lecture series he ran until his retirement in 2022. He has been a herpetology field associate at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science since 1976. Robert A. Young is a board-certified toxicologist who worked as senior research staff in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1988 to 2011. He maintains herpetology as a serious avocation, with special interests in snake venoms and fieldwork with reptiles and amphibians.