This book shows that the field of foraging biology of reptiles is alive and well. We find this exciting, as we've been interested in this field for four decades. No doubt for that reason, we've been asked to describe the history of our thinking about foraging modes. How did we become involved? What were some of the salient experiences we had, and what insights of others helped channel our thinking?

When Eric began studying US desert lizards in the early 1960s, he immediately noted that the teiid Cnemidophorus moved much more than did all species of iguanids. This lizard world was clearly dichotomous in terms of foraging behavior. In his 1966 paper in Ecology, Eric coined the terms “sit-and-wait” (hereafter SW) and “widely foraging” (hereafter WF) to characterize these different behaviors.

Ray's interest in foraging behavior evolved independently about the same time. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley in the spring of 1965, he took Natural History of the Vertebrates (taught by R. C. Stebbins and others). Students were required to do a field project: Ray studied the feeding behavior of great blue herons. In his term paper (Huey, 1965), he noted that herons “… use two distinct types of hunting whether on land or in water – stalking and still hunting.” Further, he observed that herons hunting in estuaries will switch to “still hunting” when the tide is coming in, letting the moving water bring food to the birds.