Henry Weed Fowler

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Henry Weed Fowler (born March 23, 1878 in Holmesburg , Pennsylvania , † June 21, 1965 in Newtown (Bucks County) , Pennsylvania) was an American zoologist .

Life

Henry Weed Fowler was born on March 23, 1878 in Holmesburg (Pennsylvania) and attended elementary school there. At the age of ten he began to be particularly interested in ornithology . He frequented the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) looking at and sketching the exhibits. Occasionally the boy was given access to the academy's library, where he broadened his knowledge through self-study.

In 1893, at the age of 15, he applied to the ANSP for a scholarship, which he was granted in 1894. The grant from the Jessup Foundation was linked to the condition that the recipient worked part-time as an assistant at the museum. One of the first assignments assigned to Fowler in connection with this activity was the personal delivery of a letter from the Academy to Edward Drinker Cope demanding the immediate return of specimens illegally removed from the Academy Museum. Obviously over a weekend and initially unnoticed, Cope had dissected several snake specimens from the museum's holdings, removed their hemipenes and took them home. Fowler took the letter to Cope's Philadelphia home and was warmly received. Cope took a liking to the young fellow on a delicate mission, asked him about his main scientific interests and finally involved him in a lengthy technical discussion that made a lasting impression on Fowler.

Fowler's interests soon turned away from ornithology and towards herpetology and especially ichthyology . After Cope's death in 1897 he was commissioned to sift through his collection, which he had bequeathed to the ANSP, and to evaluate Cope's extensive records. Cope's estate also contained an extensive collection of fish skeletons that he had acquired from Joseph Hyrtl in the 1870s . Fowler began sketching the specimens and his talent as a scientific illustrator soon became known outside of the ANSP.

In 1901, Fowler was invited by David Starr Jordan to come to Stanford University as his student . As an illustrator, he should earn the costs of study and residence. Jordan also pointed out that Fowler had the opportunity in Stanford to develop his talent as an illustrator with his illustrator Chloe Leslie Starks . Fowler stayed at Stanford for 2 years. It was to remain his only largely regular university education. He did not get a degree. However, teaching with David Starr Jordan had a major impact on the style of his future academic work.

In 1902 he returned to Philadelphia and took a position as assistant curator in the department for "cold-blooded vertebrates" at the ANSP. In June 1904 he was given the opportunity to participate in his first major expedition, which led him to the Florida Keys under the direction of Clarence Bloomfield Moore .

In 1909 he married Elizabeth Keim. In 1925, Henry W. Fowler Jr. was born as the only child of the marriage.

From 1913 Fowler was involved in founding and establishing the specialist journal Copeia , from whose editorial committee ( John Treadwell Nichols , Henry Weed Fowler and Dwight Franklin ) emerged from 1916 the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). Fowler was Treasurer from 1918 to 1926 and President of the Society in 1927.

In 1922 he received a research grant from Yale University , which enabled him to stay in Hawaii . The trip was the first step in a long-term activity that eventually led to the publication of his work "The Fishes of Oceania". In 1929 further stays in Hawaii, Japan, China, Java and Australia followed.

From 1925 to 1934 he was a member of the board of trustees of the vertebrate zoology department at the ANSP museum.

In the summer of 1934 he spent 6 weeks with Ernest Hemingway on his boat “Pilar”, deep-sea fishing off the coast of Cuba . The two were by no means on a pleasure trip. Hemingway had been recruited by Charles MB Cadwalader , then director of the ANSP, to assist Fowler as an assistant in researching the way of life and migratory movements of large deep-sea fish such as sailfish , marlins and tuna . Hemingway stayed in contact with Fowler later on, frequently providing him with information about his fishing trips or specimens of rare fish. Fowler returned the favor by naming the scorpion fish Neomerinthe hemingwayi after the writer in 1935 .

From 1934 to 1940 he worked as a curator for fish and reptiles and from 1940 until his death in 1965 as a curator for fish at the ANSP.

At the beginning of August 1949, his last major expedition took him to the Caribbean coast of Colombia . In Cartagena he searched the local fish market for rare and unknown species and made an inventory of all the fish found in the market over the course of several weeks. The stay was financially supported by funds from the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Foundation of the American Philosophical Society .

Henry Weed Fowler remained scientifically active into old age. He died on June 21, 1965 in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Works (selection)

Henry Weed Fowler has published 666 papers, mainly on ichthyological topics, during his scientific career . Much of it has illustrations that he made himself . A total of 1929 new taxa were described in these publications . Many of his first descriptions later turned out to be synonyms of already known forms and only about 38-40% of the taxa described by him are still considered valid today.

  • A List of Fishes Collected at Port Antonia, Jamaica , Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci, Philadelphia, 1899 (Fowler's first scientific article on ichthyology)
  • The Amphibians and Reptiles of New Jersey , Annual Report of the New Jersey State Museum for 1906, 1907 (One of the few herpetological works)
  • An Interesting Form of the Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) , Copeia, New York, 1913 (editorial of the first issue of Copeia magazine )
  • The Fishes of Oceania , Memoirs of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 10, 1928 with 3 additions 1931, 1934 and 1949
  • The Marine Fishes of West Africa , Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1936 (2 volumes)
  • A Study of the Fishes of the Southern Piedmont and Coastal Plain , ANSP Monograph 7, 1945
  • Fishes of the Red Sea and southern Arabia , Volume 1, Weizmann Science Press of Israel, 1956 (2 more volumes were completed but never published)
  • Fishes of Fiji , Government of Fiji, Suva, 1959

Fowler's most extensive work was left unfinished by his death. With A Catalog of World Fishes he planned to create a complete revision of all known recent and fossil fish taxa. Portions of the manuscript were published posthumously in the Quarterly Journal of the Taiwan Museum , and the work, although quickly seen as out of date, had an impact on younger authors.

Dedication names

After Henry Weed Fowler were named among others:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v WF Smith-Vaniz & R. McCracken Peck: Contributions of Henry Weed Fowler (1878-1965), with a Brief Early History of Ichthyology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia , Volume 143, 1991, pp. 173-191, ( digitized ).
  2. ^ C. Hull & CJ West: Funds Available in the United States for the Support and Encouragement of Research in Science and its Technologies. In: Bulletin of the National Research Council , Volume 66, 1928, p. 5, ( digitized version )
  3. ↑ a b c d e f JC Mitchell & DG Smith: Copeia 1913, Number 1: Origin and Authors. In: Copeia , Volume 2013, Number 2, 2013, pp. 189–193, ( digitized version ).
  4. ↑ HW Fowler: Special Anniversary Features: Cope in Retrospect. In: Copeia , Volume 1963, Number 1, 1963, pp. 195-198, ( preview ).
  5. ^ HW Fowler: Some cold-blooded vertebrates of the Florida Keys. In: Proceedings of The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia , Volume 58, 1906, pp. 77-113, ( digitized ).
  6. ↑ TM Berra: A Chronology of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Through 1982. In: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists - Special Publication Number 2 , 1984, 21 p., ( Digitized ).
  7. ^ A b Smithsonian Institution Archives: Fowler, Henry Weed, 1878-1965. Retrieved August 17, 2019 .
  8. ^ LH Martin: Ernest Hemingway, Gulf Stream Marine Scientist: The 1934-35 Academy of Natural Sciences Correspondence. In: The Hemingway Review , Volume 20, Number 2, 2001, pp. 5-15.
  9. ^ HW Fowler: Description of a new Scorpaenoid Fish (Neomerinthe hemingwayi) from off New Jersey. In: Proceedings of The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia , Volume 87, 1935, pp. 41-43, ( digitized )
  10. ^ HW Fowler: The Shore Fishes of the Colombian Caribbean. In: Caldasia , Volume 6, Number 27, 1953, pp. 43-73, ( digitized version ).
  11. ^ HW Fowler: A List of Fishes Collected at Port Antonia, Jamaica. In: Proceedings of The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia , Volume 51, 1899, pp. 118-119, ( digitized ).
  12. ^ HW Fowler: An Interesting Form of the Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina). In: Copeia , Volume 1913, Number 1, 1913, pp. 1-2, ( digitized ).
  13. ^ EB Böhlke: Additions and Corrections to the Bibliography of Henry W. Fowler. In: Notulae Naturae , number 459, 1984, 5 S, ( digitized version )
  14. ^ JD Haseman: Descriptions of some new Species of Fishes and Miscellaneous Notes on Others Obtained during the Expedition of the Carnegie Museum to Central South America. In: Annals of the Carnegie Museum , Volume 7, 1911, pp. 315–328, ( digitized ).
  15. ^ LP Schultz: Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands Collected in 1939 during the Expedition of the USS "Bushnell". In: United States National Museum - Bulletin , Volume 180, 1943, pp. 51-52, ( digitized ).
  16. ^ JE Randall: A Revision of the Surgeon Fish Genus Acanthurus. In: Pacific science , Volume 10, Number 2, 1956, pp. 159-235, ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Fowler, Henry Weed
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Holmesburg , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1965
Place of death Newtown (Bucks County) , Pennsylvania