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Jim Patton started off studying anthropology, but switched to zoology after an experience with a rat in the Arizona desert. He has worked in some 12 countries, described a clutch of new species, and had one genus and several species named in his honour. He is the world’s foremost expert on the terrestrial spiny rats (Proechimys), the most diverse group of rodents in the Amazon. He describes himself as an “evolutionary biologist who just happens to work on small mammals”. He has just returned from carrying out a survey of the vertebrates in Yosemite National Park for the Museum…