ROSS ALLEN

One of the true forefathers of American herpetology. In 1929 he founded Ross Allen's Reptile Institute at Silver Springs, Florida, and ran it for forty-six years as both a working research lab and a public window into the reptile world — milking venom by hand to develop the antivenoms and dried serums that protected U.S. troops in World War II. Founder and first president of the International Crocodile Society, he brought Florida's snakes, alligators, and crocodiles to a national audience decades before anyone else, and lit the spark that generations of keepers and showmen would carry forward. Cypress Island at Silver Springs was later renamed in his honor.