Arden Howell Brame

Arden Howell Brame, Jr. II (born March 19, 1934 in Beverly Hills , † August 19, 2004 in Pico Rivera ) was an American herpetologist and genealogist . His research focus was the family of the lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae).

Life

Brame's interest in salamanders began in 1952 when he collected his first living salamanders and was in correspondence with the German salamander experts Friedrich Pölz and Günther E. Freytag. Brame had a large collection of live animals, including a giant Japanese salamander that he kept in his bathtub.

In the mid-1950s, Brame entered the University of California, Los Angeles , where the biologist Bayard H. Brattstrom was his mentor. After moving to the University of Southern California , Brame earned a Bachelor of Arts in botany in 1957 . In 1967 he graduated with a Master of Science degree in zoology under the direction of Jay Mathers Savage .

From 1957 to 1963, Brame was a member of the United States Army Ready Reserve and during six months of active duty at Fort Ord in 1958, Brame had the opportunity to collect salamanders over the weekends across California. During a maneuver in Fort Ord, he collected specimens of worm salamanders that he brought to the canteen. He found out that the moisture-loving salamanders could often be observed even in long periods without rain, which was due to the long-lasting summer mists. From 1961 to 1965 he was the curator of the herpetological collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History .

In 1965, Brame became director of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center in Altadena on the northern outskirts of Los Angeles . This was one of those nature centers operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. In 1968 he became collections manager at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, but returned to his previous post at Eaton Canyon Nature Center in 1970. This position was closed in 1978 due to a reorganization of the park administration.

Brame participated in local conservation programs and was president of the Pasadena Audubon Society from 1971 to 1976. He was also a strong supporter of the Society of the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles , where he served as president in 1973.

Between 1956 and 2003 he published 40 articles on salamanders, including the majority on the lungless salamander. In the 1950s he had the plan to publish a checklist about the recent and fossil salamanders in the scientific book series Das Tierreich . However, this project was not implemented. In 1959 he participated in a five-month expedition to Costa Rica funded by the University of Southern California, which led him to study the Neotropical salamanders.

From 1960 onwards, Brame published several papers on Neotropical salamanders, almost half of them with David B. Wake . Numerous new species have been described from eight countries, from Mexico to Peru. Among them were 26 species from the genus of the mushroom-tongue salamander ( Bolitoglossa ) and seven from the genus of the tropical salamander ( Oedipina ). Brame also described four new species of worm salamander ( batrachoseps ) from the arid regions of southern California , including the desert worm salamander , which is now considered a subspecies of the California worm salamander ( Batrachoseps major ). The California worm salamander was raised to species status by Brame in 1968, after it was classified as a subspecies of Batrachoseps pacificus by Richard G. Zweifel in 1958 . In total, Brame described 38 species of Lungless Salamanders.

Since 1973 Brame also worked as an avid genealogist. So he found out that his ancestors belong to the very early settlers from the Old World, about which he in 1989 in the magazine The English Genealogist the study Early History of the Brame-Brim Family, 1674-1725, in Middlesex County, Virginia and the Brend-Brim Family, 1544-1666, published in the Dart River Valley, Devonshire, England . He also had a half-brother who was also named Arden Howell Brame, Jr.. Hence he called himself Arden Howell Brame, Jr. II.

Brame died on August 19, 2004 in a nursing home in Pico Rivera, a suburb of Los Angeles, of complications from hepatitis that he contracted a few years earlier after a blood transfusion.

Dedication names

David B. Wake, Jay Mathers Savage and James Hanken named the mushroom- tongue salamander species Bolitoglossa bramei in honor of Arden Howell Brame in 2007 . Elizabeth L. Jockusch, Inigo Martinez-Solano, Robert W. Hansen and David B. Wake described the worm salamander species Batrachoseps bramei in 2012 .

literature

• Kraig Adler: Contributions to the History of Herpetology. Volume 2. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 2007, ISBN 978-0-916984-71-7 , pp. 237-238

Web links

• Obituary at Legacy.com