Phillip Alexander Clancey

Phillip Alexander Clancey (born September 26, 1917 in Glasgow , Scotland , † July 18, 2001 in Durban , South Africa ) was a Scottish ornithologist who lived in South Africa since the 1950s.

Life

Shortly after Clancey's birth, the parents moved to London and then to Switzerland . At the age of seven, Clancey returned to Glasgow, where he spent his school days and his studies at the Glasgow School of Art . During his stationing with the Allied troops in Sicily and Italy during World War II, he narrowly escaped death. He went deaf in one ear in an explosion. From 1948 to 1949 he accompanied Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen on his ornithological expeditions to Yemen , Somalia , Ethiopia , Kenya and South Africa . In the 1950s Clancey emigrated to South Africa and was appointed curator at the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg . From 1952 to 1982 he was director of the Durban Natural Science Museum and its art gallery. After his retirement he continued his work as a research assistant for the museum until his death.

Clancey named over 200 bird taxa from southern and eastern Africa, including the yellow-breasted girlitz ( Serinus citrinipectus ). For the soprano soprano and Roberts Prinie, he revised the original genera Modulatrix and Prinia and classified the taxa in the monotypical genera Arcanator and Oreophilais .

Phillip Alexander Clancey authored over 530 scientific publications and several books, including The Birds of Natal and Zululand (1964), Birds of the South African Subregion (1965–1972), The Gamebirds of Southern Africa (1967), Handlist of the Birds of Southern Mozambique (1970-1972), The Rare Birds of Southern Africa (1985) and Kingfishers of Sub-Saharan Africa (1992). In 1980 he was editor of the SAOS Checklist of Southern African Birds and in 1978 co-author of the Atlas of Speciation of African Birds . Clancey was president of the Southern African Ornithological Society and the Southern African Museums Association. In 1975 he was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union . In 1981 he received his PhD from the University of Natal . Clancey's bird collection at the Durban Natural Science Museum is the third largest in Africa and includes 32,000 specimens collected during 26 expeditions. Clancey was also a talented bird artist. His dioramas adorn the walls of the Durban Natural Science Museum's art gallery, now known as the Phillip Alexander Clancey Gallery.

Works

• 1953: A Preliminary List of the Birds of Natal and Zululand: With a Short Account of the Status of Each
• 1964: The Birds of Natal and Zululand
• 1965-1972: Catalog of the Birds of the South African Subregion
• 1967: Gamebirds of Southern Africa: Being a Guide to All the Major Sporting Birds of Africa South of the Cunene, Okavango and Zambezi Rivers
• 1969: Check List of the Birds of South Africa
• 1970–1972: Handlist of the Birds of Southern Mozambique
• 1979: A Modern Museum Service for the City of Durban and Neighboring Towns: A Report
• 1985: The Rare Birds of Southern Africa
• 1989: Birds of the Transkei: An Ornithological History and Annotated Catalog of All Recorded Species
• 1992: Kingfishers of Sub-Saharan Africa

Web links

• David G. Allan: In memoriam: Phillip Alexander Clancey, 1917-2001 . In: The Auk . tape 120 , no. 1 , 2003, p. 260-264 ( online [accessed August 14, 2011]).