Earl S. Herald

Earl Stannard Herald (born April 10, 1914 in Phoenix , Arizona , † January 16, 1973 near Cabo San Lucas , Baja California , Mexico ) was an American biologist, scuba diver and television presenter. His main interest was ichthyology .

Life

In 1937, Herald received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles . In 1939 he received his Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley . In 1943 he was with the dissertation Studies on the Classification and Inter Relationships of the American pipefishes at Stanford University for Ph.D. PhD. During his student days, Herald came into contact with prominent mentors, including Loye Miller , Joseph Grinnell and George Sprague Myers , his PhD advisor. During World War II he served in the rank of captain in the medical corps of the United States Army . In 1946 he studied the effects of atomic bomb tests on the reef fish of Bikini Atoll . From 1947 to 1948 he worked as a water biologist in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's fisheries program in the Philippines.

In August 1948, Herald was appointed curator of aquatic biology at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. In 1949 he became director of the aquarium. During his tenure, the herpetological department, which initially consisted of a boa, was transformed into one of the world's most important exhibitions of reptiles and amphibians. The San Francisco City Council approved a $ 1,575,000 municipal loan to refurbish the aquarium . A carousel-shaped aquarium was designed, for which a sum of 1,051,000 US dollars was made available by the GHC Meyer Family Foundation. The so-called Fish Roundabout was completed after Herald's death under the direction of John E. McCosker and opened in 1977.

From 1952 to 1966, Herald hosted the California Academy of Sciences' science in Action television program .

In the late 1960s, he and Ronald B. Linsky developed the San Francisco Bay Floating Laboratory on a disused, converted PT speedboat , which enabled high school students to observe marine biologists at work. At the Steinhart Aquarium, he founded a course for students at California State University on aquatic organisms in human care.

Herald's biological study areas included New Guinea, Australia, the Marshall Islands , the Philippines, the Galapagos Islands , the Revillagigedo Islands, and Baja California. He traveled to the Amazon , the Ganges, and the Indus for his studies of freshwater dolphins . Among his 93 publications are 14 biological and taxonomic articles on the pipefish family (Syngnathidae), including descriptions of three new genera, one new decline, 14 new species and two new subspecies. Herald published two books: Living Fishes of the World (1961, revised edition 1962), which came out in 1962 in a German translation under the title Fish in the series Knauers Tierreich in Farben, and Fishes of North America (1972).

On January 16, 1973, Herald was killed while scuba diving in the coastal waters off Cabo San Lucas , Baja California.

Dedication names

Several fish species are named after Herald, including Dactyloscopus heraldi , Aseraggodes heraldi , Cosmocampus heraldi , Centropyge heraldi and Heraldia nocturna as well as the parasite Glugea heraldi from the Microsporidia division .

literature

• George S. Myers, WI Follett, and William A. Gosline: Earl Stannard Herald Copeia, Vol. 1 (Mar. 28, 1974), American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). Pp. 291-292
• Earl Stannard Herald. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 1998. Biography in Context, Online. Retrieved January 27, 2017.