Joseph Beal Steere

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Joseph Beal Steere (1906)

Joseph Beal Steere (born February 9, 1842 in Rollin , Lenawee County , Michigan , † December 7, 1940 in Ypsilanti , Michigan) was an American ornithologist and explorer .

Life

Steere was the son of William Millhouse and Elizabeth Cleghorn Steere, nee Beal. His parents were Quakers . He earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1868 and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Michigan in 1870 .

In September 1870 he went on a five-year collecting expedition for the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History . He traveled to Brazil from New York City to explore the Amazon and spent about eighteen months on this river and its tributaries. His zoological, botanical, and archaeological collections were carried down the river to the American consul in Belém , who sent them to Ann Arbor.

From December 1871 to May 1873 Steere toured Peru and Ecuador . He visited the mouth of the Río Huallaga , in March 1872 the village of Yurimaguas in the Peruvian rainforest and then crossed the Andes . He covered parts of the journey on foot and on horseback. On the way he spent some time in the ancient cities of Moyobamba (May 1872), Chachapoyas (June 1872) and Cajamarca (July to September 1872). In the town of Huanchaco , near the old city of Trujillo , he reached the seashore in November 1872. From there he traveled to Lima and in January 1873 to Guayaquil and then overland to Quito , constantly expanding his collections. In February 1873 he climbed the Pichincha volcano and went down to the bottom of the crater. He returned to Lima from Quito and went on an excursion along the coast of Peru, where, among other things, he collected old Peruvian ceramics from graves. From Lima he visited the mining region of Cerro de Pasco , where he collected minerals. In May 1873 he finally reached the port of Callao , from where he crossed the Pacific with a ship that transported 800 coolies to Macau .

From Macau he traveled successively to Hong Kong and Guangzhou in August 1873 and to Formosa Island in October 1873 , where he spent six months on an expedition to the headhunters . There he found manuscripts which he regarded as relics of the Dutch mission founded there two hundred and fifty years earlier. In March 1874 he left Formosa and traveled via Hong Kong to the Philippines , where he spent ten months. He visited several places that had never been explored by naturalists before and discovered forty new bird species, the type specimens of which are now in the collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.

In July 1874 he took a small steamboat to the Puerto Princesa colony on the island of Palawan and, after a month of hard work, crossed the island of Balabac , where he almost died of malaria fever . However, he was able to translate to Mindanao in time, where he spent about six weeks in Zamboanga City to cure himself.

From the Philippines he traveled to Singapore , from there to Malacca and made a trip through the Dutch Moluccas , where he visited several places on the islands of Buru , Ambon and Ternate . On the latter he climbed the Gamalama volcano . In the Moluccas he brought together a large collection of birds of paradise . After stops in Makassar , Celebes and Surabaja , Java , we went back to Singapore, and from there, via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea to Marseille , with a stopover in Naples . He traveled by train through France and then via London to Liverpool . In October 1875 he returned to Ann Arbor.

His expedition was funded by his cousin Rice A. Beal, the editor of the Ann Arbor Courier, on condition that Steere periodically returned letters that were published in the Courier. Steere had amassed an enormous amount of natural history material. Zoological samples included 3,000 birds, numerous mammals, 200 reptiles, 300 fish, 100,000 mussels, 500 crustaceans, 1,000 corals and 12,000 insects. Its botanical specimens consisted of plants, ferns, leaves, woody plants, flowers and fruits. Anthropological material included 500 copies of ceramics, weapons, implements, ceremonial objects, clothing and other items.

In 1875 the University of Michigan awarded him a doctorate in philosophy in recognition of his academic achievements. From 1876 to 1877 he was Assistant Professor in Paleontology and from 1877 to 1879 Assistant Professor in Zoology and Paleontology. From 1879 to 1881 he was Professor in Zoology and Curator at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. He resigned in 1894 at the request of the governing body of the University of Michigan, possibly because his blunt stance of moderation had angered the German community in Ann Arbor. He then retired to a farm near Ypsilanti, where he lived until his death.

In 1901 he undertook a final collective expedition to the Amazon with a few students on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution .

On September 30, 1879, Steere married Helen Buzzard, who was the principal of Ann Arbor's first community school before they were married. The couple had five daughters and four sons.

Steere described several species of birds from the Philippines, including the brown neck Sunbird ( Aethopyga guimarasensis ), the Black Caps White-eye ( Sterrhoptilus nigrocapitatus ), the Helena Monarch ( Hypothymis helenae ), the Mindanaoraupenfänger ( Lalage minor ), the platinum Kingfisher ( Ceyx flumenicola ), the Schieferkopfbülbül ( Hypsipetes siquijorensis ), the Mindoro Spatelschwanzpapagei ( Prioniturus mindorensis ), the Luzon-Spatelschwanzpapagei ( Prioniturus luconensis ), the Black Shama ( Copsychus cebuensis ), the Samar Schneider bird (Orthotomus samarensis ), the Mindoro Tariktikhornvogel ( Penelopides mindorensis ), the Samar-Hornvogel ( Penelopides samarensis ), the Mindanao dwarf fisherman ( Ceyx mindanensis ), the samar's broad throat ( Sarcophanops samarensis ), the Visaya caterpillar ( Coracina panayensis ) and the samar fan tail ( Rhipidura samarensis ). He described the Mindanao squirrel ( Sundasciurus mindanensis ) and the Samar squirrel ( Sundasciurus samarensis ) in mammals .

Dedication names

After Steere are the Azurbrustpitta ( Pitta steerii ), the blue neck Bartvogel ( Eubucco steerii ), the Mindanaobreitrachen ( Sarcophanops steerii ), the Philippines Oriole ( Oriolus steerii ), the Mindorokuckuck ( Centropus steerii ), the Formosabunthäherling ( Liocichla steerii ), the Philippines Wespenbussard ( Pernis steerei ) and the subspecies Pyrrhula leucogenis steerei of the white-cheeked bullfinch . In 1908 Leonhard Hess Stejneger described the Skinkart Parvoscincus steerei from the Philippines. In 1911 Edward Alphonso Goldman named the Steere short- spiked rat ( Proechimys steerei ) after Steere.

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personal data
SURNAME Steere, Joseph Beal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Rollin , Lenawee County , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1940
Place of death Ypsilanti , Michigan