{"id":1129,"date":"2021-11-16T20:12:43","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T01:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2021-11-16T20:12:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T01:12:43","slug":"desk-set-dr-greg-lewbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2021\/desk-set-dr-greg-lewbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Desk Set: Dr. Greg Lewbart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Office:<\/strong> C-295 Main Building, College of Veterinary Medicine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who:<\/strong> Dr. Greg Lewbart is a professor of aquatic, wildlife and zoological medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He makes regular trips to the Galapagos as part of a research team to study the health of wildlife populations. Before joining the faculty in 1993, he worked for a wholesaler of tropical fishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Night at the Museum\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009A shelf in Lewbart\u2019s office looks like it belongs in an old-style natural history museum. There\u2019s a giant lobster claw, a petrified manatee rib, a loggerhead sea turtle skull and a stuffed piranha. A dolphin larynx floating in alcohol was given to him by his mentor at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s veterinary school. He also displays his mentor\u2019s 1950s-era microscope. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a light source\u2009\u2014\u2009just a mirror at the bottom,\u201d Lewbart says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewbart\u2019s office is a testament to the critters he studies and the travels he\u2019s taken. Below, a stuffed copperhead purchased at a yard sale. (He usually keeps the glass dome in place.)<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Birds, too\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009A carved statue of an ivory-billed woodpecker is hard to miss. Lewbart has authored reams of academic articles, but he\u2019s also penned a novel, Ivory Hunters: A Novel of Extinction. It\u2019s a scientific mystery about a Florida game warden\u2019s search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought to be extinct. Some of the characters were inspired by people he met while working for a tropical fish wholesaler near the Florida Everglades. Another souvenir from his Florida days is an alligator skull. Lewbart befriended a man who lived in a trailer nearby and treated the man\u2019s dog for heartworms at no charge. The man gave him the skull as payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s a snake guy\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009When snakes are in the news, Lewbart is often interviewed about how to identify snakes. One of the most interesting curios in his office is a fake egg, the kind chicken farmers put in a nest to encourage a hen to lay. It seems a snake got into a coop and thought the fake egg was the real thing. Lewbart operated, removing the fake egg from the snake\u2019s belly. The snake lived, and the fake egg lives on Lewbart\u2019s shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t touch the fangs\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009Lewbart\u2019s pet snakes have included a one-eyed rescue ball python who lived for 35 years. He\u2019s never had a venomous snake, but he does have a stuffed baby copperhead under a glass dome. \u201cMy wife got it for me at a yard sale for two bucks,\u201d he says. Underneath the specimen, a label says, \u201cDo not touch fangs if glass dome is removed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

Office:<\/strong> C-295 Main Building, College of Veterinary Medicine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who:<\/strong> Dr. Greg Lewbart is a professor of aquatic, wildlife and zoological medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He makes regular trips to the Galapagos as part of a research team to study the health of wildlife populations. Before joining the faculty in 1993, he worked for a wholesaler of tropical fishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Night at the Museum\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009A shelf in Lewbart\u2019s office looks like it belongs in an old-style natural history museum. There\u2019s a giant lobster claw, a petrified manatee rib, a loggerhead sea turtle skull and a stuffed piranha. A dolphin larynx floating in alcohol was given to him by his mentor at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s veterinary school. He also displays his mentor\u2019s 1950s-era microscope. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a light source\u2009\u2014\u2009just a mirror at the bottom,\u201d Lewbart says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewbart\u2019s office is a testament to the critters he studies and the travels he\u2019s taken. Below, a stuffed copperhead purchased at a yard sale. (He usually keeps the glass dome in place.)<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Birds, too\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009A carved statue of an ivory-billed woodpecker is hard to miss. Lewbart has authored reams of academic articles, but he\u2019s also penned a novel, Ivory Hunters: A Novel of Extinction. It\u2019s a scientific mystery about a Florida game warden\u2019s search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought to be extinct. Some of the characters were inspired by people he met while working for a tropical fish wholesaler near the Florida Everglades. Another souvenir from his Florida days is an alligator skull. Lewbart befriended a man who lived in a trailer nearby and treated the man\u2019s dog for heartworms at no charge. The man gave him the skull as payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s a snake guy\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009When snakes are in the news, Lewbart is often interviewed about how to identify snakes. One of the most interesting curios in his office is a fake egg, the kind chicken farmers put in a nest to encourage a hen to lay. It seems a snake got into a coop and thought the fake egg was the real thing. Lewbart operated, removing the fake egg from the snake\u2019s belly. The snake lived, and the fake egg lives on Lewbart\u2019s shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t touch the fangs\u2009. . .<\/strong>\u2009\u2009Lewbart\u2019s pet snakes have included a one-eyed rescue ball python who lived for 35 years. He\u2019s never had a venomous snake, but he does have a stuffed baby copperhead under a glass dome. \u201cMy wife got it for me at a yard sale for two bucks,\u201d he says. Underneath the specimen, a label says, \u201cDo not touch fangs if glass dome is removed.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a look inside the office of Dr. Greg Lewbart, professor of Veterinary medicine and go-to snake expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"\",\"subtitle\":\"Take a look inside the office of Dr. Greg Lewbart, professor of Veterinary medicine and go-to snake expert.\",\"displayCategoryID\":5}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[278,489],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-college-of-veterinary-medicine","tag-greg-lewbart"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}