Albert Schwartz (zoologist)

Albert Schwartz (born September 13, 1923 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † October 18, 1992 in Miami , Florida ) was an American zoologist. His research focus was the wildlife of the West Indies .

Live and act

Schwartz attended private schools in Cincinnati . His parents died while he was in college. In 1944 he obtained his Bachelor of Science in Psychology , in 1946 his Master of Science in Zoology at the University of Miami with the thesis "Cestodes of sharks of the east coast of Florida" and in 1952 his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan with a doctoral thesis "Mammals of southern Florida and the upper Florida keys". Between 1967 and 1988 Schwartz was a professor at Miami-Dade Community College . Schwartz worked frequently with other biologists, including Richard Thomas from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and Orlando H. Garrido from Cuba. From 1954 Schwartz devoted his research to the fauna of the West Indies. He described the Key Lago cotton mouse ( Peromyscus gossypinus allapaticola ), three new bat taxa ( Nycticeius humeralis subtropicalis , Myotis martiniquensis nyctor and Sturnira thomasi ), almost two dozen new butterfly species, 40 frog species and 24 subspecies (including many species of the genera Eleutherodis and Pristimantactus ), 35 lizard species and 223 subspecies as well as 5 snake species and 32 subspecies. From the late 1970s, Schwartz conducted research on the West Indian butterfly fauna. Schwartz wrote several identification books, including A guide to the identification of the amphibians and reptiles of Hispaniola (1984), A guide to the identification of the amphibians and reptiles of the West Indies exclusive of Hispaniola (1985), West Indian Amphibians and Reptiles: A. Checklist (1988), The Butterflies of the Lower Florida Keys (1987), Haitian Butterflies (1983), The Butterflies of Hispaniola (1989), and Amphibians and Reptiles of the West Indies: Descriptions, Distributions, and Natural History (1991).

Dedication names

In 2008, the herpetologists Stephen Blair Hedges , William Edward Duellman and Matthew Paul Heinicke established the frog genus Schwartzius , which is now synonymous with the genus Eleutherodactylus . Richard Thomas named Eleutherodactylus schwartzi in 1966 and Typhlops schwartzi in 1989 in honor of Albert Schwartz. In 1972 James D. Lazell Jr. honored Schwartz in the scientific name of the subspecies Anolis wattsi schwartzi . In 1998 Geoffrey Swinney and Robert George Sprackland named the presumably extinct giant gecko Tarentola albertschwartzi after Schwartz. In 1992 the ball finger gecko species Sphaerodactylus schwartzi got its name from Schwartz colleagues S. Blair Hedges, Richard Thomas and Orlando Garrido.

literature

• Robert W. Henderson: Albert Schwartz (1923-1992). In: Caribbean Journal of Science, Vol. 29, No. 1-2, 1-3, 1993. College of Arts and Sciences. University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez