George Shaw

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George Shaw, point engraving by Ambroise Tardieu , Paris, 1820s

George Shaw (born December 10, 1751 in Bierton near Aylesbury , † July 22, 1813 in London ) was an English naturalist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " G.Shaw ", the author's name for zoological taxa is " Shaw ".

Life

George Shaw was the son of the Anglican parish priest ( vicar ) of Bierton, Timothy Shaw (1714–1786) and his wife Jane (1709–1782). He had a sister, Jane Shaw (1747–1785). His father was the head of a prestigious local school for many years, and when he became frail, George assisted him in his ministry for a long time until his death. He studied at Magdalen College of Oxford University .

Shaw began his career as a general practitioner . In 1786 he became a research assistant for botany at Oxford University. In 1788 he was a co-founder and Vice President of the Linnean Society of London , and the following year he became a member of the Royal Society . In 1791, he succeeded Edward Whitaker Gray (1748-1806) as assistant curator in the Department of Natural History in the British Museum in London. From 1807 until his death he worked there as a curator. He noticed the poor condition of many of the collection items that Hans Sloane had left the museum. The anatomical and medicinal specimens were sent to the Royal College of Surgeons , but many of the stuffed animals had decayed so much that they had to be cremated. Shaw's payment at the museum was insufficient, so he had to spend much of his time writing and not taking care of the maintenance of the collection. The German-born Charles Konig (actually Carl Dietrich Eberhard König, 1774-1851) followed Shaw in 1813 as curator.

Scientific achievements

One of Frederick Polydore Nodder -made illustration in The Naturalist's Miscellany

Shaw was the first researcher to study the wildlife of Australia in depth . In 1793 he published in his work Zoology of New Holland and the isles adjacent; the zoological part ("New Holland" (New Holland) was the name for Australia in the 17th and 18th / 19th centuries) one of the first scientific descriptions in English of some typical animals of Australia. Together with the botanist Sir James Edward Smith , the first President of the Linnean Society, Shaw published the book Zoology and Botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent in 1794 . This is the first time the term "Australia" is used in the modern sense, no longer as a name for the entire South Pacific region as it was with the geographer Alexander Dalrymple :

"The vast island, or rather continent, of Australia, Australasia or New Holland" (suggested translation: "The huge island, or rather continent , Australia, Australasia or New Holland")

Shaw cataloged the important private collection of Sir Ashton Lever (1729-1788) and published descriptions of selected exhibits in the work "Museum Leverianum". In particular, he was given the opportunity to be the first to examine numerous non-European animals, including the budgie , axolotl , American bullfrog , eastern gray giant kangaroo , naked-nosed wombat , the genus of kiwis and many others. He published the descriptions in the editions of the monthly series "The Naturalist's Miscellany". The illustrations and copper engravings were made by Frederick Polydore Nodder (approx. 1767 to approx. 1800), after his death his son Richard P. Nodder took over this task. After Shaw's death, the periodical was by Nodder and the English naturalist William Elford Leach (1790-1836) under the title The Zoological Miscellany; being descriptions of new, or interesting Animals from 1814 to 1817.

George Shaw and the "first platypus"

Shaw was the first got the opportunity to be a platypus to examine more closely. In 1799 he was able to publish the first scientific description of this animal.

In 1797 the platypus was discovered on the bank of a lake near the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales and in 1798 John Hunter , the local governor , probably sent the dried hide of a not yet fully grown male along with some drawings of the animal to the British Museum. Shaw was given the task of examining the animal in detail and preparing the initial scientific description. At the sight of an animal that resembles a mole to which the tail of a beaver and the beak of a duck had been attached, he began to wonder if someone was joking:

"... impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal, and to surmise that there might have been practiced some arts of deception in its structure." (Suggested translation: "... impossible not to harbor a few doubts about the authenticity of the animal and to assume that an artistically executed deception could have been made on its shape.")

Such a presumption was obvious, since the bellows came from the Indo-Pacific region and the Chinese resident there were known for their skills as taxidermists , especially for arranging parts of different animals into something new. To search for hidden seams, Shaw cut the fur at the base of the beak with scissors, but found nothing suspicious. These cuts can still be recognized today on this “first platypus”, the scientific comparative specimen or holotype in the Natural History Museum in London . Shaw described the species under the two-part scientific name ( binomial ) Platypus anatinus and published the work in June 1799 as usual in The Naturalist's Miscellany (Volume 10). In Europe, the curious -looking platypus immediately caused a sensation, although at that time it was not yet known that it was an egg-laying mammal . This fact only found general approval in 1884, and in “ Brehms Tierleben ” (1864–1869) corresponding reports were dismissed as “ fables , which in part owed their origin to the reports of the natives ”. However, Shaw now found himself exposed to allegations of forgery .

However, the name "Platypus" had already been used in 1793 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst for a genus from the beetle family Platypodidae . According to the rules of zoological nomenclature , homonymy was not allowed here , as both genera belong to the animal kingdom , so the name had to be changed. A year after Shaw's first description, in 1800, the German anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , who had also received a hide, published another description of the animal and named it Ornithorhynchus paradoxus . From Shaw's description, following the rule of priority in such cases , the available specific epithet and from Blumenbach's work the available generic name were retained, resulting in the replacement name Ornithorhynchus anatinus ("duck-like bird's beak ") , which has been valid since then . Since Shaw's original genus name thus its validity ( validity lost), takes place since then, as is usual in such cases, the mention of the author and year of first description in parentheses after the species name.

Due to the popularity that the animal gained very quickly, its original generic name "(duck-billed) platypus" was retained in the English-speaking world and became an everyday name (common name ).

Major publications

  • Zoology of New Holland and the isles adjacent Originally published in parts together with: A specimen of the botany of New Holland by James Edward Smith. The title of the combined work is: Zoology and botany of New Holland and the isles adjacent / the zoological part by George Shaw; the botanical part by James Edward Smith (1794)
  • Museum Leverianum , containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever (1792-6)
  • General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History (16 vol.) (1809–1826) (volumes IX to XVI by James Francis Stephens )
  • The Naturalist's Miscellany: Or, Colored Figures Of Natural Objects; Drawn and Described Immediately From Nature (1789–1813) with Frederick Polydore Nodder (artist and engraver)

Web links

Commons : George Shaw  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Shaw, George (biography, English)  - sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Portrait of George Shaw . Last accessed February 28, 2011
  2. ↑ Monumental Inscriptions in the Parish Church of St. James the Great, Bierton ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Last accessed February 28, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / met.open.ac.uk
  3. ↑ Vicars of the Parish Church of St. James the Great, Bierton ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Last accessed February 28, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / met.open.ac.uk
  4. ^ "'First platypus' still intact" . By Brady Haran, BBC News, May 16, 2005. Last accessed March 27, 2012
  5. ↑ The naturalist's miscellany - Platypus Anatinus, June 1799 / published by FP Nodder . Last accessed on March 27, 2012
  6. ^ TR Grant: Fauna of Australia - Ornithorhynchidae . Chap. 16, vol. 1b. Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS). PDF file ( Memento from July 23, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Alfred Brehm : Brehm's Thierleben: Die Säugethiere 1: Monotremes in the Gutenberg-DE project
personal data
SURNAME Shaw, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH Beer clay at Aylesbury
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1813
Place of death London