In Memory of Dick Vogt

Richard Carl Vogt, widely known as Dick, passed away on January 17 in Manaus, Brazil, at the age of 71. His life was devoted to turtle biology and conservation. Dick’s turtle work began in Wisconsin with his Ph.D. work on the systematics of the False Map Turtle group (Graptemys pseudogeographica), a particularly difficult taxonomic problem, and the publication of his first book The Natural History of Amphibians and Reptiles in Wisconsin.

While a post-doctoral fellow he did some of the first work on Temperature Dependent Sex Determination in turtles. This was an extraordinary finding, and Dick realized that it could revolutionize turtle research and conservation. It brought the opportunities and risks of manipulating the gender of turtle hatchlings to a wide audience.

More recently, Dick has been at the forefront of the dis­covery of the social importance of turtle vocalizations and migratory aggregations. In 2008 he published the book Amazon Turtles in Portuguese and English versions, and in 2013 he published The Turtles of Mexico with John Legler. These works reflected the fact that Dick, shunning academia, spent his career mostly in Mexico and Brazil — in the field with turtles and local biologists doing con­servation.


The Vallarta mud turtle (Kinosternon vogti), named after Dick Vogt
Photo: Job Stumpel
During his life in these countries he became fluent in Span­ish and Portuguese and mentored literally dozens of stu­dents who now represent a sizable fraction of the turtle biologists in Latin America. In Brazil he created the Cen­tro da Estudos dos Quelônios da Amazônia or CEQUA. This Center will be a part of his legacy as it continues to be one of the best turtle research facilities in the world. Dick is also known for creating the Powdermill Turtle Meetings, an irregular event that brings turtle biologists together in an informal setting leading to much discussion and synthesis.

Dick was recognized for his significant contributions to turtle biology and conservation with the Behler Award in 2014. Dick was also honored with the description of a highly distinctive new mud turtle from Mexico, Kinoster­non vogti, named by a team of Mexican biologists who had studied with Dick. The males of this species have unusual large yellow plates above the nostrils and look like no other turtle. At the time of his death Dick was actively working on describing a number of new South American turtle species, work that will be continued by his Brazilian and international colleagues. Dick will long be remem­bered by the turtle community.

From the Turtle Conservancy, February 1, 2021


From left to right: Jeffrey Lovich (U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, California), Richard Vogt (Estación de Biología Tropical Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico), Sheik Rashid (Nature Conservation Movement, Dhaka, Bangladesh), Dina Foscarini and Heather Passmore (University of Guelph, Ontario, Can­ada), and George Amato (Wildlife Conservation Society, New York).
In July 1993, The New York Turtle and Tortoise Society and the WCS Turtle Recovery Program presented a six-day international event at the State University of New York in Purchase: “Conservation, Restoration, and Management of Tortoises and Turtles—An International Conference.” The gathering of over 230 listened to more than 80 turtle scientists representing 25 nations.

Dick Vogt, pictured front left with session colleagues, presented his paper, “Species Abundance and Biomass Distributions in Freshwater Turtles.” His paper is included in the 1997 publication of the proceedings of the conference.

Photo by Anita Salzberg

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