Malcolm Playfair Anderson

Malcolm Playfair Anderson

Malcolm Playfair Anderson (born April 6, 1879 in Irvington , Indiana ; died February 21, 1919 in Oakland , California ) was an American zoologist , explorer, and animal collector.

biography

Malcolm Playfair Anderson was born in Irvington, Indiana in 1879 to Melville Best Anderson and his wife Charlena, nee van Vleck. He was one of two his parents' children who survived into adulthood; the other was his younger brother, Robert van Vleck Anderson. From the age of eleven to fifteen, Anderson attended school in Germany. After returning to the United States, he went to Stanford University and completed his academic training in 1904 with a Bachelor of Arts in zoology. From the age of 15, Anderson took part in collecting expeditions and made friends with scientists and academics such as Ray Lyman Wilbur . Before graduating, he had undertaken numerous scientific expeditions, crossing Arizona , California and Alaska . In 1901 he joined the Cooper Ornithology Club and wrote some ornithological articles.

In 1904 Anderson was selected to conduct an expedition to East Asia on behalf of the Duke of Bedford for the Zoological Society of London and to document the fauna there and to collect exhibits for the British Museum. Although his personal interests were more related to the bird world, his task was to document the mammalian fauna of the region and to collect relevant exhibits. The expedition started in Yokohama , Japan , and between 1904 and 1907 Anderson traveled through Japan, eastern China, and Korea . In 1908 he interrupted his travels and traveled to his mother Charlena, in order to start the second part of his expedition in Wuhan on October 5, 1909 . This part of the journey through eastern China lasted until September 13, 1910 and ended in Shanghai . All in all, the expedition collected numerous birds and more than 2,700 mammals, which resulted in numerous new species descriptions . In 1911 he announced the end of his expeditions in Asia, commented by Oldfield Thomas as follows:

"Mr. Anderson has worked for the exploration with superb enthusiasm and success, and in the extent to which his collections have revolutionized our knowledge of an extended part of the earth's surface he has made a record which, so far as I know, has never been equalled. "

Translation:

"Mr. Anderson has worked with exploration with great enthusiasm and success, and to the extent that his collections have revolutionized our knowledge of much of the earth's surface, he has set a record that, as far as I know, has never been achieved before. "

After his trips to Asia, Anderson took part in two expeditions and collection trips to South America . The first took place in 1912 under the direction of zoologist Wilfred Hudson Osgood . On the second, he traveled with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Gurnee, whom he married on June 15, 1913. With Mary Elizabeth he had a son, Malcolm Gurnee Anderson, who, however, died in childhood.

In 1918, as part of the United States' production needs during World War I , Anderson began working at a shipyard because he could not join the army. He died on February 21, 1919 when he fell from scaffolding at Moore's Shipyard in Oakland , California. After his death, his father Melville Best Anderson published an obituary for him in the scientific journal The Condor .

Dedication names

In honor of Anderson, several mammals are named that were collected by him or on his expeditions in the course of his activities. In 1905 , Oldfield Thomas named after him the Anderson bank vole ( Myodes andersoni ) from the Japanese island of Honshu and in 1911 the Anderson shrew mole ( Uropsilus andersoni ) from the Chinese province of Sichuan and the Anderson white-bellied rat ( Niviventer andersoni ) from the highlands of Tibet . Osgood named Anderson's four-eye pouch rat ( Philander andersoni ) after him, which is native to South America .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Melville Best Anderson: Malcolm Playfair Anderson. The Condor, 1919. ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009; P. 12; ISBN 978-0-8018-9304-9 .
3. ↑ Oldfield Thomas : The Duke of Bedford's Zoological Exploration in Eastern Asia.-I. List of Mammals obtained by Mr. MP Anderson in Japan. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, March 1912. doi : 10.1111 / j.1469-7998.1912.tb07008.x
4. ^ ^{A b c} Oldfield Thomas : The Duke of Bedford's Zoological Exploration of Eastern Asia.—XV. On Mammals from the Provinces of Szechwan and Yunnah, Western China. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1905; Pp. 331-363. ( Digitized version ).