Thomas Pennant

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Thomas Pennant
Elephant and Bison after Thomas Pennant, 1793 from The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne

Thomas Pennant (born June 14, 1726 in Whitford , Flintshire , † December 16, 1798 ) was a Welsh , British natural scientist, ornithologist , zoologist and archaeologist.

Live and act

He was born into a noble Welsh family who owned a large manor near Bychton in the 18th century . In 1724 his father David Pennant had also taken over the neighboring estate in Downing from a cousin. Thomas enjoyed an early education in a high school in Wrexham before he moved to "Thomas Croft's school" in Fulham in 1740 . In 1744 he joined the Queen's College in Oxford to later switch to Oriel College (College of Oxford University ). Like many students from wealthy families, he left college without a diploma in 1771. Thomas Pennant later said that as a twelve-year-old boy he felt his calling as a natural historian, which was reinforced not least by a book by the ornithologist Francis Willughby . He made tours around the world with various zoologists, such as William Borlase , and helped them with their research. In 1757 he was accepted into the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala , after the intercession of Carl von Linné . In 1766 he published the first part of his book British Zoology . During this work he visited the European continent and made the acquaintance of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon , Voltaire , Albrecht von Haller and Peter Simon Pallas .

In his book British Zoology from 1777, Thomas Pennant for the first time highlighted the crustaceans without Chelicerata, independently of or independently alongside the insects .

Honors

The Pennant Parakeet ( Platycercus elegans ) as well as the fishing marten ( Pekania pennanti ), the Pennant colobus ( Piliocolobus pennantii ) and the northern palm squirrel ( Funambulus pennantii ) as well as the genus Pennantia and the family Pennantiaceae of flowering plants were named after him.

Fonts

  • British Zoology . 1766
  • British Zoology . 1777
  • Genera of birds . 1773, online
  • Arctic Zoology . 1785-1787
  • The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne . 1793 (with Gilbert White )

Works

  • Synopsis of Quadrupeds . 1771
  • A tour in Wales . 1778 & 1781
  • Journey to Snowdon I. & II. 1781 & 1783
  • Journey from Chester to London . 1782
  • Account of London . 1790
  • Literary Life of the late T. Pennant . 1793
  • Outlines of the Globe I., II., III. & IV. - 1798 & 1790

literature

Web links

Commons : Thomas Pennant  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin, Berlin 2018, bgbm.org
personal data
SURNAME Pennant, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Welsh naturalist, ornithologist and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1726
PLACE OF BIRTH Whitford , Flintshire
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1798