Ernest Thomas Gilliard

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Ernest Thomas Gilliard (born November 23, 1912 in York , Pennsylvania , † January 26, 1965 in New York City ) was an American ornithologist .

Life

Gilliard spent his early years near Baltimore . Here he showed a special penchant for nature and adventure early on. When he z. B. visited the Île Bonaventure with some friends , he persuaded them to climb the cliffs to observe the gannets ( Morus bassanus ) that live there. He received a scholarship from the Telluride Association for Cornell University , but had to refuse it because he had injured his retina so badly with a puck while playing ice hockey that literature studies were out of the question. Instead, he went on a trip to California . Here he attended various college courses in different locations. He did this also during his service for the United States Army , which he u. a. spent in New Guinea and the Philippines . In 1932, Gillard began an internship at the American Museum of Natural History . Here he spent his entire career and eventually achieved the rank of curator . As an assistant to Frank Michler Chapman , he visited Barro Colorado Island in Panama . This marked the beginning of his career as a field ornithologist in the Neotropics . In 1937 he set out on a trip to the Auyan-Tepui in Venezuela. The trip was sponsored by his longtime friend Dr. William Henry Phelps Sr. This trip resulted in Gillard's first important publication, in which he described a new subspecies of the pale-bellied ant pitta ( Grallaria excelsa phelpsi ) ( Gilliard , 1939). Later sends in Chapman to the Serranía de la Macarena in Colombia . It was his last visit to South America . It was probably his military service that instead drove him to the South Pacific and New Guinea in particular. Here he led five expeditions in his career, a. a. in Bataan . On his travels he was often accompanied by his wife Margaret, who was an artist and explorer herself. Together they had a daughter named Susanne and two sons named Chapman and James. As a co-author, he helped mentors Ernst Mayr and Austin Loomer Rand to properly document many birds. So he developed many imaginative concepts, especially for his beloved bowerbirds and birds of paradise . Since he was a gifted photographer in addition to his writing skills, he also published for the general public in National Geographic . He published his most important monumental work in 1958 under the name Living birds of the world . Shortly after a meeting of the Explorers' Club of New York , of which he was vice president, Gillard died of a heart attack at the age of 52 .

Honors

In 1958 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wagner College in Staten Island . In 1938 he joined the American Ornithologists' Union . In 1965 he finally reached the highest member class of the Fellow .

Dedication names

The zoologist Hobart Merritt Van Deusen (1910–1976) dedicated the scientific name Pteropus gilliardi to Gilliard for a species from New Guinea that belongs to the actual flying foxes . The American herpetologist Richard George Zweifel (* 1926) named the New Guinea frog species Platymantis gilliardi , which is now known as Cornufer gilliardi , in honor of Gilliard.

There are also the following subspecies, which were named after Gilliard:


Melidectes fuscus gilliardi Salomonsen , 1966 is now considered synonymous with the colored warts-Honigfresser ( Melidectes fuscus ( De Vis , 1897)), Melidectes rufocrissalis gilliardi Diamond , 1967 as a synonym for the Reichenowhonigfresser subtype ( Melidectes rufocrissalis thomasi Diamond , 1969).

Initial descriptions

Gilliard was the first author of some species as well as many subspecies.

species

The following new bird species were described by Gillirad:

  • Olive cap tyrant ( Phylloscartes chapmani ) ( Gilliard , 1940)
  • Bismarck bush warbler or masked bush warbler ( Megalurulus grosvernori ) ( Gilliard , 1960)
  • Gilliard honey eater ( Melidectes whitemanensis ) ( Gilliard , 1960)

Together with Ernst Mayr, he described the long-bearded honey-eater ( Melidectes princeps ) ( Mayr & Gilliard , 1951).

The taxon Archboldia sanfordi , which Gilliard described together with Mayr in 1950, is now a synonym. It is a subspecies of the Archbold bowerbird ( Archboldia papuensis ) ( Rand , 1940). The correct taxon is Archboldia papuensis sanfordi . Together with Phelps, Gillard described at least 18 new subspecies in 1940 and 1941. In addition, there are at least five other subspecies, which he described with Mayr in 1950 and 1951. In 1968 he finally described with Mary LeCroy of the American Museum of Natural History a subspecies of the Belford honeyeater ( Melidectes belfordi ) ( De Vis , 1890) called Melidectes belfordi schraderensis . He also described at least 11 other subspecies on his own.

Fonts

  • Living Birds of the World , Doubleday, 1975, ISBN 978-0-385-06871-0
  • Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds , The World Naturalist, 1966
  • National Audubon Society Nature Program: Birds of the South Pacific , Nelson Doubleday, 1956
  • Descriptions of seven new birds from Venezuela . In: American Museum novitates . No. 1071 , June 5, 1940, p. 1–15 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 2.0 MB ]).
  • The birds of Mt. Auyan-Tepui, Venezuela , American Museum of Natural History, 1941
  • On the breeding behavior of the cock-of-the-rock (Aves, Rupicola rupicola) , American Museum of Natural History, 1962
  • Game birds of the world (Nature program) , N. Doubleday, 1958
  • Living Birds of the West , Doubleday, 1958
  • Results of the 1958–1959 Gilliard New Britain Expedition , American Museum of Natural History, 1967
  • Annotated list of birds of the Adelbert Mountains, New Guinea , American Museum of Natural History, 1967
  • Birds of the South Pacific , Doubleday, 1956
  • A comparative analysis of courtship movements in closely allied bowerbirds of the genus Chlamydera , American Museum of Natural History, 1959
  • The ecology of hybridization in New Guinea honeyeaters (Aves) , American Museum of Natural History, 1959
  • A new puff-bird from Colombia , American Museum of Natural History, 1949
  • Birds of the middle Sepik region, New Guinea: Results of the American Museum of Natural History expedition to New Guinea in 1953–1954 , American Museum of Natural History, 1966
  • Notes on a Collection of Birds from Bataan, Luzon, Philippine Islands , American Museum of Natural History, 1950
  • Four new birds from the mountains of central New Guinea , American Museum of Natural History, 1961
  • A study of the coleto or bald starling (Sarcops calvus) , American Museum of Natural History, 1949
  • To the land of the head-hunters: An ornithologist finds bird rarities and glimpses a dying culture in innermost New Guinea , National Geographic Society, 1955
  • Birds of the Victor Emanuel and Hindenburg Mountains, New Guine , American Museum of Natural History, 1961
  • Birds of the Schrader Mountain region, New Guinea: Results of the American Museum of Natural History expedition to New Guinea in 1964 , American Museum of Natural History, 1968
  • Exploring New Britain's land of fire , National Geographic Society, 1961
  • Notes on the courtship behavior of the blue-backed manakin (Chiroxiphia pareola) , American Museum of Natural History, 1959
  • The courtship behavior of Sanford's bowerbird (Archboldia sanfordi) , American Museum of Natural History, 1959
  • New Guinea's Paradise of Birds , National Geographic Society, 1958
  • The systematics of the New Guinea manucode, Manucodia ater , American Museum of Natural History, 1956
  • Notes on some birds of northern Venezuela , American Museum of Natural History, 1959
  • A new race of Grallaria excelsa from Venezuela , American Museum of Natural History, 1939
  • Ernest Thomas Gilliard, Georg Steinbacher: Knaurs Tierreich in Farben , Droemer Knaur, 1969
  • Austin Loomer Rand, Ernest Thomas Gilliard: Handbook of New Guinea birds , Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967
  • Ernst Mayr, Ernest Thomas Gilliard: Birds of central New Guinea , American Museum of Natural History, 1954
  • William Henry Phelps, Ernest Thomas Gilliard: Six new birds from the Perijá Mountains of Venezuela , American Museum novitates; no.1100, 1940
  • with William Henry Phelps: Seventeen new birds from Venezuela . In: American Museum novitates . No. 1153 , November 26, 1941, p. 1–17 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 2.7 MB ]).

literature

  • Jürgen Haffer : Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005 , Springer, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-71778-2
  • Robert Cushman Murphy , Dean Amadon : In memoriam E. Thomas Gilliard . In: The Auk . tape 83 , no. 3 , July 1966, p. 416–422 (English, sora.unm.edu [PDF; 378 kB ]).
  • Frank Michler Chapman: The upper zonal birds of Mt. Auyan-tepui, Venezuela . In: American Museum novitates . No. 1051 , December 7, 1939, pp. 1–15 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 2.0 MB ]).
  • Alexander Wetmore, William Henry Phelps: Description of a third form of Curassov of the genus Pauxi . In: Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. tape 33 , March 23, 1947, pp. 142–146 (English, biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • Sukarya Somadikarta: The identity of the Marquesan swiftlet Collocalia ocista Oberholser . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 114 , no. 4 , 1994, pp. 259-263 (English, biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • Richard George Zweifel: Results of the 1958–1959 Gilliard New Britain Expedition. 3. Notes on the frogs of New Britain . In: American Museum novitates . No. 2023 , November 29, 1960, pp. 1–27 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 2.5 MB ]).
  • Hobart Merritt Van Deusen: Results of the 1958-1959 Gilliard New Britain Expedition. 5, A new species of Pteropus (Mammalia, Pteropodidae) from New Britain, Bismarck Archipelago. In: American Museum novitates . No. 2371 , May 12, 1969, p. 1–16 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 1.9 MB ]).
  • Kenneth Carroll Parkes: A revision of the Philippine elegant titmouse (Parus elegans) . In: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington . tape 71 , July 16, 1958, p. 95-106 (English, biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • James Cowan Greenway: Birds collected on Batanta, off western New Guinea, by E. Thomas Gilliard in 1964 . In: American Museum novitates . No. 2258 , August 18, 1966, p. 1–27 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 2.2 MB ]).
  • Finn Solomon Islands: Preliminary description of New Honey-Eaters (Aves, Meliphagidae) . In: Brevoria . No. 254 , November 4, 1966, pp. 1–12 (English, biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • Jared Mason Diamond: New subspecies and records of birds from the Karimui Basin, New Guinea . In: American Museum novitates . No. 2284 , March 10, 1967, p. 1–17 (English, digitallibrary.amnh.org [PDF; 1,3 MB ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Cushman Murphy et al. a., pp. 416-422.
  2. ↑ Hobart Merritt Van Deusen, p. 5.
  3. ^ Richard George Zweifel, p. 10.
  4. ↑ Sukarya Somadikarta, p. 144.
  5. ↑ Frank Michler Chapman, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Alexander Wetmore et al. a., p. 144.
  7. ↑ Kenneth Carroll Parkes, p. 98.
  8. ↑ James Cowan Greenway, p. 14.
  9. ↑ Finn Salomonsen, p. 10.
  10. ^ Jared Mason Diamond, p. 9.
personal data
SURNAME Gilliard, Ernest Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH York
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1965
Place of death New York City