John Edwards Hill

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John Edwards Hill (born June 11, 1928 in Colemans Hatch , Sussex , † May 6, 1997 ) was a British mammal loge . His main research interests were bats and rodents .

Life

Hill was the only child of Albert and Marjorie Hill, née Edwards. During the Second World War he attended East Grinstead Grammar School, which he graduated from in 1946 at the age of 18. He received an award in biology and the general award for the exam. During the war years, Hill and his family lived at Ashdown School, a small private school where his father was a gardener and his mother was a housekeeper. In order to support his family financially, Hill took a position as a part-time teacher at Ashdown School, where he taught crafts. The school principal apparently recognized Hill's abilities and taught him the classical languages ​​Latin and Greek, both of which would benefit him in his future career.

After leaving school, Hill became an assistant at the Department of Aviation's Meteorological Office. This is how he got into the Royal Air Force (RAF) despite his poor eyesight . After two months in which he acquired some technical knowledge and skills, he was duly recruited into the RAF and served as a meteorological assistant with the British Air Force for the next two years. During his service with the RAF he traveled within Asia, where he spent some time in Japan, the Nicobar Islands and Singapore. In 1948 he retired from the RAF as Leading Aircraftman (British counterpart to Lance Corporal of the Air Force). In the same year he was appointed to the Scientific Civil Service, the British Government's scientific service, and was given a position as research assistant at the Natural History Museum in London, where his long career began in the mammalian department. In 1949 he was transferred to the Pest Research Station in the Slough Scientific and Industrial Research Division. Soon after, he was offered a scholarship to study at university, but he turned it down. Instead, he began his curatorial work at the Natural History Museum. Here he came into contact with numerous well-known zoologists, including Terence Morrison-Scott (1908–1991), the head of the mammal department and Robert W. Hayman , his immediate superior. Other people who influenced Hill in his career were Sir John Ellerman , who dealt with the taxonomic study of rodents and the mammal logon Eleanor MO Laurie , with whom Hill worked closely in the early years at the museum. In 1955 Hill married Brenda Morphew, who helped him with his research. From this marriage a daughter was born. In 1977, Hill was appointed Scientific Director of the Mammals Division of the Natural History Museum. In 1985 he was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Mammalogists . In 1988 Hill retired.

As author and co-author, Hill described 24 new species and 26 new subspecies (13 rodents and 37 bats), including the world's smallest bat species in 1974, the pig- nosed bat ( Craseonycteris thonglongyi ) from Thailand, which belongs to a genus and family of its own. He also published revisions on the genera Hipposideros , Philetor , Laephotis , Scotoecus , Hesperoptenus and Mystacina as well as on the families Rhinopomatidae and Vespertilionidae .

Hills publications include Use of dermestid beetles for cleaning mammalian skeletons (1951), List of land mammals of New Guinea, Celebes and adjacent islands (1954), Robinson Collection of Malaysian mammals (1960), Bats from Ethiopia collected by the Great Abbai Expedition, 1968 , A world list of mammalian species (1980, 1986 and 1991), Bats: A Natural History (1984) and Mammals of the Indomalayan region (1992).

A particular focus of research was the bats, about which Hill published around 90 scientific articles.

Dedication names

Several bat taxa are named after John Edwards Hill, including Taphozous hilli , Rhinolophus hilli , Hipposideros edwardshilli , Pteropus neohibernicus hilli , and Sturnira koopmanhilli . In 1995 Paulina D. Jenkins and Angela L. Smith named the Hill shrew ( Crocidura hilliana ) in honor of Hills. Rhinolophus hillorum was named in honor of John Edwards Hill and John Eric Hill .

literature

  • Paulina D. Jenkins : John Edwards Hill, 1928–1997 - An appreciation In: Mammalia , Vol. 61, No. 2. 1997: 287-289.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Jenkins, 1997
  2. ↑ DJ Kitchener: Taphozous hilli sp. nov. (Chiroptera: Emballonuridae), a new sheath-tailed bat from Western Australia and Northern Territory. Records of the Western Australian Records of the Western Australian Museum Vol. 8, 1980. pp. 161-169
  3. ^ Aellen, V. 1973. Un Rhinolophus nouveau d'Afrique Centrale. Periodicum Biologorum 75: 101-105.
  4. ↑ Timothy Flannery & Donald J. Colgan: A new species and two new subspecies of Hipposideros (Chiroptera) from Western Papua New Guinea. Records of the Australian Museum, 45, 1993: 43-57
  5. ↑ Heinz Felten : A new subspecies of Pteropus neohibernicus (Mammalia, Chiroptera). Senckenbergiana Biologica, Frankfurt a. M., 42, 1961: 417-418
  6. ↑ Timothy J. McCarthy, Luis Albuja V, Michael S. Alberico: A new species of Chocoan Sturnira (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae: Stenodermatinae) from western Ecuador and Colombia. Annals of Carnegie Museum, 75 (2), 2006, pp. 97-110. doi : 10.2992 / 0097-4463 (2006) 75 [97: ANSOCS] 2.0.CO; 2
  7. ↑ Paulina D. Jenkins, Angela L. Smith: A new species of Crocidura (Insectivora: Soricidae) recovered from owl pellets in Thailand Bulletin of The Natural History Museum Zoology Series 1995 61: 103-109
  8. ^ Koopman, KF 1989. Systematic notes on Liberian bats. American Museum Novitates 2946: 1–11.
personal data
SURNAME Hill, John Edwards
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mammal loge
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Colemans Hatch , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1997