Austin Loomer Edge

Austin Loomer Rand (born December 16, 1905 in Kentville , Nova Scotia , Canada , † November 6, 1982 in Lake Placid , Florida ) was a Canadian ornithologist .

Rand grew up near Wolfville . He studied zoology at Acadia University and received a Bachelor of Science degree . In 1961, Acadia University awarded him an honorary doctorate .

As a student at Cornell University , he took part in an expedition to Madagascar in 1929 , on which he wrote his doctoral thesis in 1936 entitled The distribution and habits of Madagascar birds . During the expedition, Rand worked with the zoologist and philanthropist Richard Archbold , with whom he had a lifelong friendship. From the 1930s onwards, Archbold led expeditions to New Guinea in which Rand participated. In 1941, Austin Loomer Rand and Richard Archbold built the Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid , Florida , an independent research facility dedicated to the study and conservation of Florida's flora and fauna

In 1942 Rand was a zoologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature (formerly the National Museum of Canada), where he worked with the ornithologist Percy A. Taverner and the mammalogen Rudolph Martin Anderson . From 1947 to 1955 he was bird curator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and from 1955 to 1970 chief curator of zoology at the same museum. In the 1940s and 1950s he undertook several expeditions to Africa and South America with Melvin Alvah Traylor junior .

From 1962 to 1964 he was President of the American Ornithologists' Union .

Austin Loomer Rand first described species of birds like the Archbold-Laubenvogel ( Archboldia papuensis ), the Mamberanolederkopf ( Philemon brassi ) and Angola helmetshrike ( Prionops gabela )

Rand's son Austin Stanley Rand (1932-2005) was a herpetologist.

Works (selection)

• 1936. The distribution and habits of Madagascar birds . (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History).
• 1937. Results of the Archbold expeditions No.14: The birds of the 1933-1934 Papuan expedition . (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Coauthored with Ernst Mayr).
• 1942. Results of the Archbold Expeditions. Birds of the 1936-1937 New Guinea Expedition . (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History).
• 1955. Stray feathers from a bird man's desk. Fascinating and unusual sidelights on the lives of birds .
• 1956. American Water and Game Birds . (Contains silhouettes of Ugo Mochi )
• 1960. Birds of the Philippine Islands: Siquijor, Mount Malidang, Bohol, and Samar . (Fieldiana. Coauthored with DS Rabor).
• 1961. A Midwestern Almanac, Pageant of the Seasons . (Coauthored with his wife Rheua M. Rand).
• 1962. Birds in Summer .
• 1967. Ornithology: an Introduction .
• 1967. Handbook of New Guinea Birds . (Coauthored with E. Thomas Gilliard).
• 1971. Birds of North America .

Individual evidence

• Morse, R. (2000). Richard Archbold and the Archbold Biological Station . University Press of Florida: Gainesville. ISBN 0-8130-1761-0
• Traylor, Melvin A .; Amadon, Dean; & Godfrey, W. Earl. (1984). In memoriam: Austin L. Rand. Auk 101 : 600-602.

Web links

• biography