Edward Harrison Taylor

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Harrison Taylor (born April 23, 1889 in Maysville , Missouri , † June 16, 1978 in Lawrence , Kansas ) was an American herpetologist .

Live and act

In 1908 Taylor enrolled in the University of Kansas , where he graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology and paleontology . He then took a teaching position in a village in the central region of Mindanao in the Philippines. In his spare time he studied the local herpetofauna and published several articles about it. In 1916 he returned briefly to Kansas, where he earned his master's degree. At the end of the First World War he worked for the US secret service in Siberia. In 1920 he became head of the fisheries department at the Bureau of Science in Manila. In addition, his numerous trips made it possible for him to explore the fish and reptile fauna of the Philippine islands. In 1921 he was appointed head of the Department of Zoology at the University of Manila. During this time he published several monographs, including Amphibians and Turtles of the Philippine Islands (1921), The Lizards of the Philippine Islands (1922), and Herpetology of the Philippine Islands (1925). After returning to the United States, Taylor received his PhD in 1927 and became head of the zoological department at the University of Kansas. From 1929 to 1936 he studied the taxonomy of the Skink genus Eumeces . Between 1937 and 1948 he made many excursions to Mexico, where he discovered several new species of salamander. In the following years he researched the herpetofauna on Costa Rica , Sri Lanka and Thailand . From 1946 to 1954 he was a curator of herpetology at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. In 1959 he retired as a professor emeritus. In addition to numerous amphibian species, he described the fish-digging family in 1968 and the grave-digging family from the order of the sneak amphibians in 1969 . Taylor first described 115 species of reptiles. In 1975 Taylor published his autobiography under the title Recollections of an Herpetologist .

During the Second World War, Taylor worked from 1944 for the Office of Strategic Services , a forerunner of the CIA , and trained agents on Ceylon . After the war he supported the British in Malaysia in investigating Japanese war crimes.

Dedication names

After Taylor several amphibian and Reptilientaxa are named, including Anolis taylori , Cyrtodactylus edwardtaylori , Dibamus taylori , Hemidactylus taylori , Hemitheconyx taylori , Xenagama taylori , Agkistrodon taylori , Hyalinobatrachium taylori , Ambystoma taylori , Platymantis taylori and Liotyphlops taylori .

Works (selection)

  • 1921: Amphibians and Turtles of the Philippine Islands
  • 1922: The Lizards of the Philippine Islands
  • 1922: The Snakes of the Philippine Islands
  • 1925: Herpetology of the Philippine Islands
  • 1934: Philippine Land Mammals
  • 1935: A taxonomic study of the cosmopolitan scincoid lizards of the genus Eumeces: with an account of the distribution and * relationships of its species
  • 1941: Extinct lizards from Upper Pliocene deposits of Kansas, Extinct toads and salamanders from Middle Pliocene beds of Wallace and Sherman counties, Kansas
  • 1956: A review of the lizards of Costa Rica
  • 1962: The Amphibian fauna of Thailand
  • 1963: The Lizards of Thailand
  • 1965: The Serpents of Thailand and Adjacent Waters
  • 1966: Herpetology of Mexico: Annotated Checklists and Keys to the Amphibians and Reptiles
  • 1968: The Caecilians of the World: A Taxomic Review
  • 1970: The Turtles and Crocodiles of Thailand and Adjacent Waters: With a synoptic herpetological bibliography
  • 1972: Squamation in Caecilians: With an Atlas of Scales
  • 1977: The comparative anatomy of caecilian mandibles and their teeth

literature

  • Robert G. Webb: Edward Harrison Taylor 1989-1988. In: Herpetologica. Volume 34, No. 4. The Herpetologists' League, 1978: pp. 422-425.
  • William E. Duelmann: Edward Harrison Taylor, 1889–1978 In: Copeia. No. 4. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists 1978: pp. 737-738.
  • Kraig Adler: Contributions to the History of Herpetology, Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles . 1989.
  • Rohan Pethiyagoda: Pearls, Spices and Green Gold. An Illustrated History of Biodiversity Exploration in Sri Lanka . WHT Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-955-9114-38-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Uetz: The original descriptions of reptiles, Zootaxa, No. 2335, 2010, 59–68, pdf
  2. ↑ Brendan Borrell: The spy who loved frogs. In: Nature . Volume 501, No. 7466, 2013, pp. 150-153, doi: 10.1038 / 501150a
personal data
SURNAME Taylor, Edward Harrison
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Taylor, Edward H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American herpetologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Maysville, Missouri
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1978
Place of death Lawrence, Kansas