One of my great joys as a child was collecting tadpoles and raising them in jars in the kitchen. Fortunately, my parents were supportive and always helped me to return the frogs to their home pond. These early experiences were so influential that I conducted master’s research on frog habitat ecology and then moved to Ireland on a Fulbright Grant to study “frogs in the bogs.” For my PhD work I shifted my focus from amphibians to reptiles and ants to explore individual variation and ecological thresholds. Though these lizards are commonly known as “horny toads,” they are actually lizards, not toads! In spite of my original love for reptiles and amphibians, I have applied my questions about niche relationships and population dynamics to a wide variety of taxa across ecosystems.