Alan C. Ziegler

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Alan Conrad Ziegler (born December 10, 1926 in Texas , † September 16, 2003 in Hawaii ) was an American zoologist who lived in Hawaii and studied its fauna and natural history. He was also an environmental activist in Hawaii.

Life

He moved to Hawaii in 1967, where he was curator of vertebrate zoology at the Bishop Museum . He left the museum in 1983 and became an independent consultant in zoology. He also taught anthropology, zoology and science at colleges in Hawaii and the University of Hawaii .

He was involved in the discovery of a number of extinct flightless birds such as ibises, eagles, finches, owls, ravens, and geese in Hawaii from the 1970s onwards. From 1971, the fossils were found in old sand dunes, lava tunnels and karst holes, among other things, collected in particular by the amateur paleontologist Joan Aidem. Ziegler later expanded this with rich finds in sinkholes (especially in the karst plain of Ewa). The only extinct bird found in Hawaii prior to 1971 was an extinct goose in 1926 found under 25 m of lava. The findings of the 1970s were described in a Smithsonian Report by Storrs Olson and Helen F. James in 1982 .

As an environmental activist, he campaigned for the preservation of sites and biotopes and fought against the settlement of new species such as the axis deer and eels.

Ziegler wrote a standard work on the natural history of Hawaii, which he published shortly before his death. It was the first such comprehensive work after that of his predecessor at the Bishop Museum William Alanson Bryan in 1915. Ziegler was also interested in the mammalian fauna of New Guinea and wrote, together with William Zander Lidicker, the report on a collection of mammals from eastern New Guinea; including species keys for fourteen genera .

He was an outdoor activist and circumnavigated the six largest islands of Hawaii in a kayak. Ziegler was married and had a son and a daughter.

Dedication names

In 2005 Kristofer Helgen named the rat species Hydromys ziegleri of New Guinea in honor of Alan Ziegler.

Fonts

  • Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology and Evolution, University of Hawaii Press 2002, ISBN 0-8248-2190-4
  • Inference from prehistoric faunal remains, Addison-Wesley 1973

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ziegler Prehistoric Hawaiian Birds , in CW Smith (editor): Proceedings of the Second Conference in Natural Sciences Hawaii Volcanoes National Park; 1978 June 1-3; Honolulu. Honolulu (HI): University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Botany, p. 349, abstract, pdf
  2. ↑ Geochen rhuax (now Branta rhuax), described by Alexander Wetmore , see Storrs Olson , Hawaii's first fossil bird: history, geological age, and taxonomic status of the extinct goose Geochen rhuax Wetmore (Aves: Anatidae), Proc. Biological Society of Washington, 126, 2013, 161-168, abstract
  3. ↑ Storrs Olson, Helen F. James Prodromus of the Fossil Avifauna of the Hawaiian Islands , Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 365, Smithsonian Institution 1982, pdf . They were supposed to be edited by Wetmore, who was busy with his work on the birds of Panama and died in 1978.
personal data
SURNAME Ziegler, Alan C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ziegler, Alan Conrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist, paleontologist, and ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Texas
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 2003
Place of death Hawaii