John P. Friel

John Patrick Friel (* 1964 ) is an American ichthyologist . His research focus is the catfish-like (Siluriformes).

Life

From 1982 Friel completed a degree in zoology at the University of Central Florida , where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1986 with the distinction magna cum laude . From 1987 to 1993 he was an assistant professor of comparative vertebrate anatomy at Duke University . From 1994 to 1995 he was a lecturer in Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy at Duke University. In 1995 he received the dissertation A phylogenetic study of the Neotropical banjo catfishes (Siluriformes: Aspredinidae) under the direction of John G. Lundberg for Ph.D. PhD in Zoology from Duke University. From 1995 to 1998 his was done post-doctoral phase as a research assistant at the Department of Biological Sciences of Florida State University . He was a research fellow from 1998 to 2008 and was a senior research fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University from 2008 to 2015 . From 1998 to 2015 he was curator for fish, amphibians and reptiles at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates. From 2012 to 2014 he was a lecturer in fish biology at Cornell University. Since 2015 he has been the director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama . Since 2017 he has been a visiting lecturer at the Department of Biosciences and since 2018 he has been a visiting lecturer at the Department of Anthropology as well as a museum advisor and internship coordinator at the University of Alabama.

Friel is concerned with documenting the diversity of catfish and researching their evolutionary relationships, morphology, and phylogenetics . This includes field studies to collect new specimens and tissue samples, as well as detailed examination of specimens in natural history museums around the world. His main interest is in the South American frying pan and banjo rocks (Aspredinidae) and the Mochokidae family (whiskered catfish and African suckling catfish), both groups that have not been well researched, but have a high biodiversity.

Friel undertook research trips to Brazil (1993), Venezuela (1994), Gabon (1999), the Republic of Congo (2002), Cameroon (2004, 2011), Tanzania (2004, 2007, 2009), Zambia (2005), in the Central African Republic (2006), Ethiopia (2008), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2010) and Guinea (2013).

Friel is one of the Erstbeschreibern of species Chiloglanis camarabounyi , Chiloglanis kolente , Chiloglanis kabaensis , Chiloglanis dialloi , Chiloglanis loffabrevum , Chiloglanis longibarbis , Chiloglanis pezoldi , Chiloglanis Nzerekore , Chiloglanis tweddlei , Micromyzon orinoco , Micromyzon akamai , Hoplomyzon cardosoi , Amaralia oviraptor , Acanthobunocephalus nicoi , Atopodontus adriaensi , Synodontis woleuensis , Synodontis acanthoperca , Bunocephalus hartti , Bunocephalus minerim , Haplochromis vanheusdeni and the genera Pseudobunocephalus , Micromyzon and Acanthobunocephalus .

In 2018, Friel wrote the chapter on frying pan and banjo catfish in the work Field Guide to the Fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco, and Guianas by Peter van der Sleen and James S. Albert in collaboration with Tiago P. Carvalho .

Friel is a member of the American Alliance of Museums, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and the Natural Science Collections Alliance.

Dedication names

In 2012, Sébastien Lavoué described the species Petrocephalus frieli from the Nile pike family (Mormyridae). Alfred M. Thompson and Lawrence M. Page named in 2015 the Quappenwelsart Amphilius frieli in honor of John P. Friel.

literature

• Curriculum Vitae (PDF, as of January 2019)

Web links

• Profile for John P. Friel at the University of Alabama
• Bibliography at Google Scholar
• Literature by and about John P. Friel in the WorldCat bibliographic database