Robert Gurney

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Robert Gurney ( July 31, 1879 - March 5, 1950 ) was a British zoologist .

Gurney came from the Norfolk Gurney banking family, his father John Gurney (1845-1887) was in the family bank and mayor of Norwich . Gurney attended Eton College and graduated from Oxford (New Hall) in 1902. With his brother Eustace he founded the UK's first freshwater research station in Sutton Broad (to create a counterpart to the marine research station in Plymouth). It only existed until the First World War, but he was later also involved in the establishment of the Freshwater Biological Association with a research station in Far Sawrey near Windermere . He lived in Stalham in Norfolk and from 1928 in Boars Hill near Oxford. He was never associated with any institution. In 1927 he received a doctorate (D. Sc.) From Oxford.

He wrote a monograph on freshwater copepods (Copepoda) and larvae of decapods (Decapoda). The similarity of the larvae of copepods he wrote to his friend, the Zoology Professor Walter Garstang , following, a form of neoteny to and not the biogenetic rule of Ernst Haeckel , which he declined. Although he mainly dealt with freshwater species, he also published on marine Copepoda.

He took part in an expedition to North Africa in 1906 and in 1924 in the Cambridge University expedition to Suez. In 1936 he visited the marine research station Hurghada on the Red Sea and twice he was in Bermuda. He edited finds from other expeditions such as the Great Barrier Reef Expedition of 1928/29, the Terra Nova Expedition and various Discovery expeditions of the 1920s and 1930s.

Gurney was married to Garstang's sister Gamzu. His son Oliver R. Gurney (1911-2001) was an Assyriologist and Hittiteologist.

The copepods genus Robertgurneya and several species are named after him. However, some cancers are named after other members of the Gurney family who were important patrons in Norfolk.

Fonts

  • British Freshwater Copepoda, 3 volumes, Ray Society 1931-1933
  • Bibliography of Larvae of Decapod Crustacea, Ray Society 1939
  • Larvae of Decapod Crustacea, Ray Society 1942

literature

  • William Thomas Calman, Obituary in Nature, Vol. 162, 1950, pp. 587-588
  • JD Hawkins: Gurney, Oliver Robert, Dictionary of National Biography 2005
  • Alister Hardy: Dr. Robert Gurney, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Vol. 162, 1950, pp. 118-121
  • AL Rice: Robert Gurney (1879-1950), Journal of Crustacean Biology, Vol. 9, 1989, pp. 351-355

References and comments

  1. ↑ Biographical Etymology of Marine Organism Names, G.
personal data
SURNAME Gurney, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1879
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1950