Richard G. Zweifel

Richard George Zweifel (November 5, 1926, in Los Angeles – November 25, 2019 ) was an American herpetologist, who classified several species in the American Southwest and in Australia, including the rattling frog. Zweifel contributed immensely to the documentation of the nowadays Aspidoscelis costatus species. Out of the eight costata subspecies, Dr. Zweifel reported and named five of them. Zweifel worked at the American Museum of Natural History from 1954 to 1989, and was Herpetology Department Chairman from 1968 to 1980.

Zweifel was a resident of Northvale, New Jersey, and in Arizona.

Legacy
In 1984, he was honored by the naming of "Zweifel's frog" (Lithobates zweifeli ), found in Mexico, and in 1998 a microhylid frog Cophixalus zweifeli was named after him. Several other amphibians have been named for him: Nyctimystes zweifeli, Xenorhina zweifeli, and Oscaecilia zweifeli, as is the proposed (sub)genus Zweifelia.