Alfred Goldsborough Mayer

Alfred Goldsborough Mayer (born April 16, 1868 in Frederick (Maryland) ; ⚭ 1900 Harriett Hyatt ; † June 24, 1922 on Loggerhead Key of the Dry Tortugas ) was an American naturalist, marine zoologist (focus on cnidarians ) and entomologist .

Life

Alfred Goldsborough Mayer was born on April 16, 1868, the son of the physicist Alfred Marshall Mayer and Katherine Duckett Goldsborough in Frederick, Maryland. Before he decided to study zoology at Harvard University in 1892 , he received a doctorate in engineering and began his thesis in physics. Soon after, Alexander Agassiz (1835-1910), director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard University, proposed to him to assist him with a work on jellyfish and later as a curator in the museum, and trained him in this direction. In the years 1892 to 1900 Mayer drew and described jellyfish that he collected around Australia , the South Pacific Islands, on the west Atlantic coast and around the Dry Tortugas . From 1900 to 1904 he worked as a natural history curator at the Brooklyn Museum .

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC approved Mayer's proposal to build the Tortugas Marine Laboratory on Loggerhead Key. Although he encountered many problems there, Mayor achieved great success, winning renowned biologists for important research projects and carrying out many of his own studies. In 1910 he published a monumental work: Medusae of the World. Two years later, an equally important work on rib jellyfish (Ctenophora) followed. Then Mayer began researching the ecology of the coral reefs around the Dry Tortugas and in the South Pacific and recorded his studies in several publications. He was a pioneer in this field of research. In 1916 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences .

In 1918 Mayer changed his last name to Mayor because Germans were not at all liked to be seen in the USA during those years. Weakened from tuberculosis , Alfred Goldsborough Mayor died on June 24, 1922 on Loggerhead Key, leaving behind his wife Harriett Hyatt, whom he had married in 1900, and four children. As a result, his wife erected a self-designed plaque on Loggerhead Key.

Works

• On the color and color patterns of moths and butterflies. Cambridge 1894-97.
• The development of the wing scales and their pigment in butterflies and moths. Cambridge 1896.
• Descriptions of new and little-known Medusae from the Western Atlantic. Cambridge 1900.
• Some medusae from the Tortugas, Florida. Cambridge 1900.
• The variations of a newly-arisen species of Medusa. Macmillan, New York 1901.
• Effects of natural selection and race tendency upon the color patterns of Lepidoptera. Macmillan, New York 1902.
• Medusae. Cambridge 1902.
• Some species of Partula from Tahiti. Cambridge 1902.
• The Atlantic palolo. Macmillan, New York 1902.
• Medusa of the Bahamas. Eagle, New York 1904.
• Sea-shore life. New York, 1905.
• Rhythmical pulsation in Scyphomedusæ. Washington 1906.
• Medusa of the world. Washington 1910.
• Ctenophores of the Atlantic coast of North America. Washington 1912.
• Medusa of the Philippines and of Torres Straits. Washington 1915.
• A history of Tahiti. New York 1916.
• Nerve-conduction in Cassiopea xamachana. Washington 1917.
• Report upon the Scyphomedusae collected by the United States Bureau of Fisheries steamer "Albatross" in the Philippine islands and Malay archipelago. Washington 1917.
• Ecology of the Murray Island coral reef. Washington 1918.
• Navigation. Lippincott, Philadelphia, London 1918.
• Nerve conduction in diluted and concentrated sea-water. Washington 1918.
• Toxic effects due to high temperature. Washington 1918.
• Hydrogen-ion concentration and electrical conductivity of the surface water of the Atlantic and Pacific. Washington 1922.
• The tracking instinct in a Tortugas ant. Washington 1922.