During the late 1920s, Ditmars helped bring about antivenom centers in the United States and Honduras, and soon after launched a series of expeditions to Central and South America in search of tropical specimens for the zoo. His main quarry was a bushmaster, the world's largest type of viper, a specimen of which he successfully brought back from the island of Trinidad in 1934. The previous year, he also famously collected and exhibited the first living specimens of vampire bat.
