David Happold

David Christopher Dawber Happold , FZS , (born April 19, 1936 in Salisbury , Wiltshire , England ), often also DCD Happold in publications , is a British - Australian mammaloge . His main research interests are the small mammals of Africa and Australia .

Life

David Happold is the son of Frederick Crossfield (1893–1971) and Dorothy Vectis Happold, nee Halbach. From 1947 to 1955 he graduated from Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, where his father was headmaster from 1928 to 1960. In 1957 he enrolled at Peterhouse College of the University of Cambridge , where he in 1960 his master gained Accounts. In the same year he went to Canada , where he did fieldwork on the ecology and distribution of mosquitoes between 1961 and 1962 as part of his studies at the University of Calgary in northern Alberta , particularly near the Flatbush housing estate and Athabasca . In April 1963, he submitted his doctoral thesis on this with the title Studies on the ecology of mosquitoes in the boreal forest of Alberta .

In July 1963 he accepted a research assignment from the University of Khartoum , where he shifted his interests to mammalogy . During the three years that he spent in Khartoum , he traveled to the semi-desert regions of Sudan and studied small mammals there. Most of the research involved ecological studies of the little gerbil and the great Egyptian gerbil .

In April 1966 he moved to the University of Ibadan in Nigeria (one year before the start of the Biafra War ) and began long-term studies on the population development of bottom-dwelling small mammals in the rainforest , the distribution patterns of small mammals in the savannah areas , reproductive strategies of small mammals and the problems of Species protection in the national parks . David Happold lived in Nigeria for 12 years until he and his wife Meredith, an Australian zoologist, were forced to leave the country in 1977 due to various circumstances. They moved to Australia and David Happold accepted a post in the Department of Zoology at the Australian National University . From January 1977 until his retirement in August 1998 he worked as a lecturer , senior lecturer and reader .

In Australia, Happold and his students worked on many issues relating to the ecology of small mammals in the subalpine and alpine regions of Kosciuszko National Park , a few kilometers south of Canberra . The studies dealt with population development, reproduction strategies, habitat choice, food preferences, social behavior, the effects of altitude (especially snowfall in winter) on many areas of life and the problems of nature conservation in mountain habitats.

He also continued his work in Africa. From 1984 to 1985 and from 1993 to 1994 he lectured as a visiting professor at the University of Malawi in Zomba . Together with his wife, he carried out long-term studies on African bats.

In 1983, together with Rainer Hutterer , Happold described the savannah shrew ( Crocidura longipes ) from Nigeria.

plant

In 1971 Happold published the IUCN publication Wildlife Conservation in West Africa . In 1973 the book Large Mammals of West Africa was published . In 1979 he wrote the book Ecology of African Mammals with Michael James Delany . In 1984 he wrote the chapter Small Mammals in the book Sahara Desert by John L. Cloudsley-Thompson . In 1987 the book Mammals of Nigeria came out. This comprehensive reference book is the first field guide to list all 250 species of mammals found in Nigeria. In 2011 Happold published the book The African Naturalist: The Life and Times of Rodney Carrington Wood 1889–1962 about the game warden and lepidopterist Rodney Carrington Wood , who spent his life mainly in Nyassaland (now Malawi ). In 2013 the six-volume work Mammals of Africa was published , on which David Happold co-edited alongside Jonathan Kingdon , Meredith Happold , Thomas M. Butynski , Jan Kalina and Michael Hoffmann . In 2014 it received the Dartmouth Medal from the American Library Association . In 2018 the book Africa from East to West was published, in which Happold describes a journey that he undertook between 1965 and 1967 from Massaua on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea to Cap Vert in Senegal . He has also published over 80 scientific articles, often co-authored by his wife.

David Happold is a member of the Zoological Society of London , the British Ecological Society and Fauna & Flora International .

Honors and Dedication Names

For his services to African mammal research, David Happold received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Science) from the University of Cambridge in 1997 and he was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Mammalogists . In 2019 David and Meredith Happold were honored in the kind epithet of the bat species Parahypsugo happoldorum from Guinea and Liberia .

literature

• Stephen A. Orimoloye: Biographia Nigeriana: a biographical dictionary of eminent Nigerians GK Hall & Co, Boston, 1977, ISBN 0-81618-049-0 , pp. 162-163

Web links

• Curriculum Vitae and Bibliography at Researchgate
• Profile at the Australian National University
• Literature by and about David Happold in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Hutterer , Jan Decher, Ara Monadjem , Jonas Astrin: A New Genus and Species of Vesper Bat from West Africa, with Notes on Hypsugo, Neoromicia, and Pipistrellus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Acta Chiropterologica, 21 (1), 2019, pp. 1-22. doi : 10.3161 / 15081109ACC2019.21.1.001