7 
In 1950, Neill started drawing wildlife cartoons for a 
local newspaper. Telling the story of Florida's reptiles 
and other life forms, these cartoons were quickly picked up 
by another 54 newspapers. Starting in 1950 and ending in 
1968, Allen and Neill wrote over 60 articles on Florida's 
vertebrates in Florida Wildlife, the popular magazine of 
the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. These 
two men did more to educate Floridians about reptiles than 
anyone to this day. No one has adequately filled the void 
since Allen's death and Neill's retirement (Wilfred now 
lives at the Lakeland Health Care Center in Lakeland, 
Florida), to the great detriment of Florida's herpetofauna. 
Soon after arriving at the institute, Neill developed an 
additional academic interest in anthropology, sparked by 
the Seminole Indians and their village re-creation and 
enhanced by Wilfred's friendship with Ripley P. Bullen, 
Curator of Anthropology at the Florida State Museum. 
Starting in 1952, Neill wrote 20 anthropological papers and 
later, two books: Reptiles and Amphibians in the Service of 
Man (1974) and Archeology and a Science of Man (1978). He 
also became President of the Florida Anthropological 
society and organized anthropology and herpetology 
conferences at Silver Springs and Rainbow Springs. 
Ross Allen first visited British Honduras (Belize) in 
1937. Something about the country must have intrigued him, 
for in 1957 he initiated a series of five collecting trips 
to Belize, resulting in over 1,500 specimens added to the 
ERA-WTN Collection and another 12 papers written primarily 
by Neill between 1959 and 1965. The crew on the 1959 trip 
included ten people in addition to Allen and Neill. K. P. 
Schmidt's 1941 herptile list for the country was 
considerably expanded. The process continues to this day, 
with C. J. McCoy, Curator of Herpetology at the Carnegie 
Museum, working on revisions to the known herpetofauna of 
Belize. 
Neill was the classic field naturalist and collector. He 
knew Florida habitats better than anyone in the state, and 
remembered where he found each specimen, as well as each 
individual's color pattern and external morphology. (He 
had a "photographic memory"). He described at least four 
new species and ten new subspecies of amphibians and 
reptiles, some of which are still considered valid. He 
carried a mattock (a heavy, pick-like hand tool with 
flattened blades), which he used to tear apart fallen logs. 
