ABSTRACT
Ecotoxicology is an active and exciting field of applied research, and studies of amphibians and reptiles have been making important contributions to this body of work. During the past decade, there has been a tremendous increase in research on the toxicology of these groups as evidenced by the number of publications on the topic (Figure 14.1). A large proportion of this research has been focused on amphibians with considerably less attention given to reptiles despite repeated calls for more studies of reptile toxicology (Hall 1980; Hopkins 2000). One of the driving factors responsible for the disproportionate interest in amphibian toxicology has been the global decline in amphibian populations and the associated hypothesis that contaminants may be playing either a primary or secondary role in these declines (Alford and Richards 1999; Collins and Storfer 2003; Stuart et al. 2004).
