Carl H. Ernst

Carl Henry Ernst (born September 28, 1938 in Lancaster , Pennsylvania - † November 3, 2018 ) was an American herpetologist . His main research interests were turtles and snakes .

Life

Ernst was the son of George Henry and Evelyn Mae Ernst, nee Schlotzhauer. He grew up in Lancaster's Seventh District and graduated from JP McCaskey High School in 1956. In 1960 he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and in 1963 a Master of Education degree from West Chester University . In 1969 he was with the dissertation Natural history and ecology of the painted turtle, Chrysemys picta (Schneider) for Ph.D. PhD in vertebrate zoology from the University of Kentucky . That same year he married Evelyn Marie Chasteen, an information center director at the National Science Resource Center. From this marriage two daughters were born.

Ernst began teaching in 1960 at Hempfield High School, where he taught biology until 1966 and worked as a trainer for the wrestling team. From 1967 to 1969 he was an assistant professor in biology at Elizabethtown College . From 1964 to 1968 he was a teaching assistant in vertebrate zoology and from 1967 to 1969 he was the curator of the vertebrate collection at the University of Kentucky. From 1969 to 1972 he was an assistant professor of biology at Southwest Minnesota State University . From 1972 to 1978 he was an associate professor and from 1978 to 2003 he was a full professor of biology at George Mason University in Fairfax , Virginia . In 2004 he retired as a professor emeritus. Ernst led courses in vertebrate zoology and ecology and he was chairman of the department for environmental science and policy. During his tenure at George Mason University as a full professor of biology, he directed the graduate programs of 51 masters and 20 doctoral students and was named Distinguished Professor of Herpetology by the university in 1986.

From 1972 to 2016 Ernst was a research fellow in the amphibians and reptiles department of the Smithsonian Institution . An accomplished researcher on snakes and turtles, he has published over 240 scientific papers in professional journals and wrote eleven books, including four with colleague Roger W. Barbour and four with his wife.

Ernst described McCord's Box Turtle ( Cuora mccordi ), the subspecies Rhinoclemmys pulcherrima rogerbarbouri of painted wood turtle , the subspecies Platemys platycephala melanonota the red-headed Platt turtle , the subspecies Cuora flavomarginata evelynae the yellow border box turtle and the subspecies Platysternon megacephalum shiui the big-headed Turtle . In 1987, in collaboration with Brent B. Nickol, he described the scratchworm species Neoechinorhynchus lingulatus , which parasitizes on the Florida red-bellied ear turtle ( Pseudomys nelsoni ).

Dedication names

In 1992 Jeffrey E. Lovich and Clarence John McCoy named the Escambian Mute Tortoise ( Graptemys ernsti ) in his honor of Carl H. Ernst.

Fonts (selection)

• with Roger W. Barbour: Turtles of the United States. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 1972.
• with Roger W. Barbour: Snakes of Eastern North America. George Mason University Press, Fairfax, Virginia 1989.
• with Roger W. Barbour: Turtles of the World. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1989.
• Venomous Reptiles of North America. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1992.
• with Roger W. Barbour and Jeffrey E. Lovich: Turtles of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1994
• with George Robert Zug : Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1996; 2nd revised edition published as Snakes: Smithsonian Answer Book. 2004.
• with Evelyn M. Ernst: Snakes of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Books, Washington, DC 2003.
• with Evelyn M. Ernst: Synopsis of Helminths Endoparasitic in Snakes of the United States And Canada. Society for the Study of Amphibians & Reptiles, 2006.
• with Robert P. Reynolds and Steve W. Gotte: Catalog of Type Specimens of Recent Crocodilia and Testudines in the National Museum of Natural History. Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, DC 2007.
• with Evelyn M. Ernst: Venomous Reptiles of the United States, Canada, and Northern Mexico. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, Volume 1: Heloderma, Micruoides, Micrurus, Pelamis, Agkistrodon, Sistrurus. 2011, Volume 2: Crotalus. 2012.

literature

• Carl Henry Ernst . In: American Men & Women of Science: A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences. Gale, 2008. Gale In Context: Biography, accessed November 25, 2019
• Carl H. Ernst: Biographical Sketch and Bibliography of Carl H. Ernst. In: Smithsonian Herpetological Information Service, No. 150, Division of Amphibians & Reptiles National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 2016, ISSN  2331-7515 , pp. 1-19.
• Dr. Carl H. Ernst 1938–2018. In: Catesbeiana - Journal of the Virginia Herpetological Society. Volume 39, No. 1, Spring 2019, ISSN  0892-0761 , pp. 26-27.
• Jeffrey E. Lovich: Carl H. Ernst 1938-2018 In: Herpetological Review 50 (1), 2019, pp. 209-211

Web links

• Literature by and about Carl H. Ernst in the bibliographic database WorldCat