Clarence John McCoy

Clarence John McCoy, Jr. (born July 25, 1935 in Lubbock , Texas , † July 7, 1993 in Penn Hills , Pennsylvania ), also known as Clarence J. McCoy or Jack McCoy , was an American herpetologist . His main research interests were the herpetofauna of the United States , Mexico and Belize .

Life

McCoy was the son of Clarence John McCoy senior and his wife Marguerite Ceona, nee McNew. His father was a drilling engineer in the petroleum industry . When McCoy was five years old, the family moved to Tulsa , Oklahoma , where he developed a keen interest in hunting and fishing. At Tulsa High School he met the herpetologist and ornithologist Edith R. Force, who introduced him to reptiles. In 1957, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife ecology from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater . In the same year he married Patsy Ruth Kelly. From this marriage a son and a daughter were born. During the summer months of 1959 and 1960 he was a lecturer in zoology at Oklahoma State University and then graduated with a Master of Science degree. For his doctoral studies he moved to the University of Colorado , where he in 1965 with a thesis on life history and ecology of Cnemidophorus tigris septentrionalis about the life and ecology of the Tiger Whiptail ( Aspidoscelis tigris ) under the direction of T. Paul Maslin for Ph.D . received his doctorate. During his time in Colorado, McCoy made numerous field trips to Mexico, which would become the geographic focus of his career.

Even before his doctorate, McCoy was a research fellow at the University of Colorado Museum in 1962 . From 1964 to 1993 he worked at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania . The museum had two herpetological authorities, M. Graham Netting , former curator of the herpetological department and later director of the museum, and Neil D. Richmond , at the time chief curator of the herpetological department. In 1965 McCoy became assistant curator, in 1970 deputy curator and in 1972 he took over from Richmond as chief curator. During his tenure, McCoy continued his intensive fieldwork in Mexico. He also conducted field studies in Belize and made shorter excursions to southern South America and Algeria . He energetically expanded the herpetological department of the museum with a special focus on Central American species. In 30 years he increased the inventory from 75,000 to almost 180,000 samples. He built the collection of freshwater turtles into one of the largest in the world.

McCoy was the first descriptions to Aspidoscelis rodecki (MCCOY & MASLIN, 1962), Cyrtodactylus biordinis BROWN & MCCOY, 1980, Emoia rufilabialis MCCOY & WEBBER, 1984, Emoia taumakoensis MCCOY & WEBBER, 1984, Gerrhonotus lugoi MCCOY, 1970, Graptemys Ernie Lovich & MCCOY, 1992, Graptemys gibbonsi LOVICH & MCCOY, 1992 and Lepidodactylus flaviocularis BROWN, MCCOY & RODDA, 1992.

Dedication names

In 2018 McCoy was honored in the species epithet of the Mexican lizard species Gerrhonotus mccoyi .

literature

• Carl Gans: Clarence J. McCoy, 1935-1993 In: Copeia , Volume 1994, No. 3, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) August 17, 1994, pp. 840-842
• J. Kelly McCoy, Ellen J. Censky, Stephen D. Busack: Biographical Sketch of CJ McCoy: 1935-1993 In: Herpetologica , Vol. 50, No. 4, Allen Press on behalf of the Herpetologists' League, December 1994, pp. 378-382
• Kraig Adler: Contributions to the History of Herpetology . Volume 2. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 2007, ISBN 978-091698-471-7 , pp. 240-241

Web links

• Literature by and about Clarence John McCoy in the WorldCat bibliographic database