Peter Humphry Greenwood

Peter Humphry Greenwood in 1968

Peter Humphry Greenwood (born April 21, 1927 in Redruth , † March 3, 1995 in London ) was a British ichthyologist . His main research interests were the cichlids ( Pseudocrenilabrinae ) of Lake Victoria and other fish of the African Great Lakes .

Life

When Greenwood was 18 months old, the family emigrated from Cornwall to South Africa , where his father worked as a miner. In 1944 he joined the South African naval forces and was posted to the Royal Navy , where he was an able seaman in the waters off Java and Sumatra against Japan . In 1946 he returned to South Africa and began studying medicine at Witwatersrand University . Soon after, he switched to zoology . After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950, he went to prepare for his Ph.D. - Dissertation to the British Museum of Natural History in London, where Ethelwynn Trewavas introduced him to the problem of the cichlids of Lake Victoria. In 1950 he married Greenwood Marjorie George. From this marriage there were four daughters. Between 1950 and 1951 he was a six-month research fellow at the East African Fisheries Research Organization in Jinja , on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. 1951 followed another seven years as a research fellow in Uganda, which led to his abandoning his plans for a doctorate . From 1958 to 1959 he was a research fellow and from 1959 to 1967 he was the scientific director and curator at the ichthyological department of the Natural History Museum in London. From 1964 to 1975 he was a member of the sub-committee of the International Biological Program for Inland Waters Management. In 1965 he was a research fellow at the American Museum of Natural History . From 1967 to 1985 he was scientific director at the Natural History Museum. From 1967 to 1974 Greenwood was chairman of the subcommittee of the International Biological Program of the Royal Society at Lake Georg , which examined the limnology and biology of Lake Ugandan. Greenwood led the investigation team from London, supplemented by on-site visits. From 1976 to 1979 Greenwood was President of the Linnean Society of London. In 1977 he joined the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology in Grahamstown . In 1979 he was visiting professor of ichthyology at Harvard University . From 1985 to 1989 Greenwood was assistant scientific director at the Natural History Museum, from 1990 he was a visiting researcher. In 1992 he was a lecturer at the University of Bergen .

Greenwood's passion for the sea and fish was shaped by childhood fishing trips, his time in the Navy, and the discovery of the coelacanth off the East London coast in 1938.

Honors and Dedication Names

In 1963 Greenwood received the Scientific Medal from the Zoological Society of London . In 1972 he was elected Honorary Foreign Member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists . In 1982 he was awarded the Linnean Society of London's Medal for Zoology . In 1984 he became a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences . In 1985 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In 1991 he received an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University in South Africa. In 1983 Max Poll named the genus Greenwoodochromis in honor of Peter Humphry Greenwood. Ole Seehausen and Niels Bouton named the cichlid species Haplochromis greenwoodi after Greenwood in 1998 .

Fonts (selection)

• Fishes of Uganda, 1958 (2nd edition, 1966)
• Fossil Vertebrates, 1967 (with Colin Patterson and Roger Steele Miles )
• Interrelationships of Fishes, 1973 (with Colin Patterson and Roger Steele Miles)
• The Cichlid Fishes of Lake Victoria: the biology and evolution of a species flock, 1974
• A History of Fishes, 1975 (2nd revised edition of 1931 by John Roxborough Norman , with Colin Patterson)
• The Haplochromine Fishes of the East African Lakes, 1981

literature

• The Linnean Society of London: Presentation of Medals and Awards In: Record of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 18, 1982, pp. 413-414
• Gordon Howes: Obituaries: Humphry Greenwood. The Independent of March 11, 1995
• Gordon Howes: Peter Humphry Greenwood, 1927-1995 In: Copeia, Vol. 1995, No. 3 (Aug. 18, 1995), pp. 759-762
• Paul Skelton: Peter Humphry Greenwood, 1927–1995, a personal tribute. Journal of Fish Biology, Vol. 47, No. 5, 1995, pp. 749-752.
• Colin Patterson: Peter Humphry Greenwood. April 21, 1927-3 March 1995: Elected FRS 1985 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 43, 1997, p. 195. doi : 10.1098 / rsbm.1997.0011 .
• Greenwood, Peter Humphry, Who Was Who, A&C Black, 1920-2008; Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 Online Edition , accessed March 3, 2018.

Web links

• Profile at the Natural History Museum