John Hewitt (zoologist)

John Hewitt (born December 23, 1880 in Dronfield near Sheffield , England , † August 4, 1961 in Grahamstown , South Africa ) was a South African zoologist of British origin. His research focus was the herpetofauna of the Eastern Cape .

Live and act

Already interested in science as a schoolboy, Hewitt studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge . In 1903 he graduated from Jesus College with a Bachelor of Arts. From 1905 to 1908 he was a curator at the Sarawak Museum in Kuching , Borneo .

In 1909 he moved to Pretoria , South Africa, where he accepted a position as assistant curator for lower vertebrates at the Transvaal Museum . In 1910 he took over the position of director of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown in what is now the Eastern Cape Province from Selmar Schönland . Despite limited funds, Hewitt himself built up an extensive herpetological collection. Extensions were added to the museum in 1920 and 1938. In September 1941, a fire in the main building destroyed most of Hewitt's collection, including many specimens and the list of new acquisitions.

Hewitt received numerous awards for his research, including an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University in 1935 . When he retired in 1958, archaeologist Hilary Deacon succeeded him at the Albany Museum.

Hewitt was a naturalist with many interests. His first attention was given to the spiders , about which he wrote numerous articles. His first herpetological work was in 1905 on the snakes of Sarawak . Between 1909 and 1938 he wrote 45 scientific papers on amphibians and reptiles, most of which dealt with systematics and distribution. The focus of the reptile and amphibian fauna described by Hewitt was South Africa, including taxa such as the Eastwood flagellated lizard ( Tetradactylus eastwoodae ), the king ghost frog ( Heleophryne regis ), the Cape ghost frog ( Heleophryne rosei ), the Natal ghost frog ( Hadromophryne natalensis ), Acontias namaquensis , Cordylus coeruleopunctatus , the Namaqua dwarf chameleon ( Bradypodion occidentale ) and several species of thick-fingered geckos ( Pachydactilus ). In 1911 Hewitt undertook a collective expedition to Madagascar together with Baron Paul Ayshford Methuen , about which he wrote two scientific articles in 1913.

Since 1931, Hewitt published several articles on turtles. The extensive turtle collection of James Edwin Duerden (1869–1937) acquired by the Albany Museum was greatly enlarged by Hewitt. Based on these collection pieces, Hewitt distinguished many local populations and described many of them as new subspecies. Of the tented tortoise ( Psammobates tentorius ) alone , Hewitt listed 27 different subspecies, 16 of which he newly described. In their 1957 monograph Revision of the African Tortoises and Turtles of the Suborder Cryptodira on the tortoises and tortoises of Africa Arthur Loveridge and Ernest Edward Williams (1914-1998) only accepted three subspecies.

Hewitt published a book, a richly illustrated field guide about the amphibians and reptiles (but also about other vertebrates) of the Eastern Cape Province . This work appeared in two parts in 1918 and 1937. After the fire in 1941, Hewitt gave up herpetological work and devoted himself to archeology.

Dedication names

The following taxa are named after John Hewitt : Anhydrophryne hewitti (1947 by Vivian Frederick Maynard FitzSimons ), Goggia hewitti (1995 by Aaron M. Bauer , William Roy Branch and David Andrew Good) and Heleophryne hewitti (1988 by Richard Charlton Boycott).

literature

• Kraig Adler (ed.): Contributions to the History of Herpetology , Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, St. Louis, Mon. 1989, p. 80 ( PDF )