Inez Whipple Wilder was an American herpetologist and anatomist, affiliated with Smith College from 1902 until her death in 1929. In 1904 Inez published an influential study on the skin of mammalian palms and feet, describing how embryonic pads influence later ridges and patterns, now recognized as an important early contribution to dermatoglyphics, the study of fingerprints. The paper, “The Ventral Surface of the Mammalian Chiridium: With Special Reference to the Conditions Found in Man”, summarized all prior knowledge of the field of genetics and dermatoglyphics, and was the most significant study of in time about the ridges in non-human animals of its time. Her 1914 book Laboratory Studies in Mammalian Anatomy was widely used, with a second edition published in 1923.
Inez was the first to name and describe the function of nasolabial grooves, olfactory structures found in plethodontid, or “lungless” salamanders. Later, with a colleague, she proposed an explanation for the evolutionary loss of lungs in plethodontids. She studied the salamanders Desmognathus fuscus and Eurycea bislineata extensively, and published 13 papers on salamander biology. In 1925 she published The Morphology of Amphibian Metamorphosis, in which she describes the comparative biology of D. fuscus, E. bislineata, and the newt Notophthalmus viridescens.