Clinton Hart Merriam
Clinton Hart Merriam (born December 5, 1855 in New York City , † March 19, 1942 in Berkeley ) was an American zoologist , ornithologist and ethnographer . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Merriam ".
Live and act
Merriam was the son of US Congressman Clinton L. Merriam . He studied biology and anatomy at Yale from 1874 to 1877 and received his doctorate in 1879 from the School of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University . From 1879 to 1885 he was a medical doctor in Upstate New York .
In 1886 he became the first head of the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy in the United States Department of Agriculture , precursor of what is now the National Wildlife Research Center and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service . He held this position until 1910. In 1888 he co-founded the National Geographic Society and developed the concept of life zones to classify the biomes of North America. From 1891 to 1892 he was President of the Biological Society of Washington . In 1899 he organized a tour of discovery along the coast of Alaska for the railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman . In his life he was president or chairman of numerous institutions: from 1900 to 1903 for the American Ornithologists' Union , 1902 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences , from 1917 to 1935 to the US Board on Geographic Names , 1919 to 1921 to the American Society of Mammalogists , 1920-1921 with the Anthropological Society of Washington and 1924-1925 with the American Society of Naturalists .
From 1910 he studied the language and life of the Indian tribes of the western United States. His research in this regard was of little importance. Merriam published a total of over 500 scientific works, mostly on mammals and birds, and described about 600 new species.
Merriam's grandson, the geographer and ecologist Lee Merriam Talbot (* 1930), was involved in the rediscovery of the Mesopotamian fallow deer in 1957 and was director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) from 1980 to 1983 .
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Clinton Hart Merriam at the IPNI
- www.wku.edu Chrono-Biographical Sketches
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Merriam, Clinton Hart |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English paleontologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 5, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 19, 1942 |
| Place of death | Berkeley |