William Hosmer

Douglas William Hosmer (born February 25, 1925 in Belfast , Northern Ireland , † December 28, 2002 in Ingham , Queensland ), often called William Hosmer or Bill Hosmer in publications , was an Australian herpetologist of British origin.

Life

Hosmer's parents were from England and his father served as a soldier in the British Army . In 1928 the family moved to Vancouver , Canada , where William Hosmer was educated at various Jesuit schools. At the age of 18 he was drafted into the Royal Canadian Navy , where he served in the North Atlantic during World War II . In 1946, Hosmer left the Navy and worked in various jobs in Vancouver and the United States, where he worked frequently as a projectionist. In 1948 he emigrated to Australia via England on board the Astuarias . He arrived in Victoria but soon after moved to Sydney . For a year he lived in the suburb of La Perouse in the neighborhood of George Cann's reptile farm. Cann also sparked Hosmer's interest in reptiles.

In 1949 Hosmer and his youngest brother Dennis became members of the Australian Reptile Club (now the Australian Herpetological Society (AHS)), which included well-known herpetologists such as Harold G. Cogger and Roy Mackay . In 1950 Hosmer had earned a reputation as an avid snake collector, where he was bitten several times by black otters . In 1951 he moved to Cairns in north Queensland and became a reptile collector for the Australian Museum in Sydney. He then collected for several years on behalf of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago . In 1954, Hosmer became a technician for the anthropologist Donald Thomson at the University of Melbourne . He also attended some lectures, the only formal university education he enjoyed. From May to November 1957, Hosmer was a technical assistant and radio operator on Thomson's expedition to the Great Sandy Desert in Central Australia . On this expedition, William Hosmer collected 169 samples from reptiles and amphibians despite the extreme drought. 1963 listed Thomson and Hosmer in its report that the Bindibu - Aboriginal frogs and reptiles, including large skinks and pythons, ate, they had been cooked in the fireplace ashes. With the exception of the thorn devil, they also consumed agamas , which, in Thomson's experience, did not occur with Aborigines in other parts of Australia.

From 1959 to 1960 Hosmer participated in the Spalding-Peterson expeditions to northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea , which were carried out under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City . With Philip Spalding, Jr. he toured New Guinea , the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Alice Springs and Borroloola in the Northern Territory and Lower Kimberley in Western Australia . Hosmer wanted to write a comprehensive report about these expeditions, during which more than 2000 samples were collected. In 1961 he worked for the American Museum of Natural History for this purpose. With the exception of two brief treatises, however, he could not complete his project.

From 1963 to 1964, Hosmer carried out fieldwork in Sarawak on behalf of the Field Museum of Natural History . In the following years he collected all over Australia and New Guinea. He lived in a trailer in the late 1980s. This allowed him to conduct regular collection excursions and record frog sounds on the Cape York Peninsula. He carried large piles of manuscripts, none of which had been published. During his time in New Guinea he worked as a projectionist in Port Moresby .

In 1992 he transferred his remaining collection to the Australian Museum and the following year he moved to Townsville on the Queensland coast. He died on December 28, 2002 at the age of 77 in a nursing home in Ingham.

Hosmer supported himself mainly through commissioned work for museums and through temporary positions. This allowed him to spend more time in the field. His first articles were brief essays, his later, more important work was done in collaboration with Chris Corben , Robert F. Inger , Glen Joseph Ingram , David S. Liem , Hymen Marx and Donald Thomson. Between 1952 and 1982 he published a total of 15 scientific articles. Hosmer described the reptile species Lerista karlschmidti , Sphenomorphus cyanolaemus and Sphenomorphus haasi as well as the amphibian species Notaden melanoscaphus , Taudactylus eungellensis , Taudactylus rheophilus , Litoria revelata and Litoria watjulumensis .

Dedication names

The skinkart Egernia hosmeri and the frog species Cophixalus hosmeri are named after William Hosmer .

literature

• Peter Mirtschin: The pioneers of venom production for Australian antivenoms Toxicon 48, 2006, pp. 899-918 doi : 10.1016 / j.toxicon.2006.07.026
• Kraig Adler (Ed.): Contributions to the History of Herpetology , Volume 3, Contributions to Herpetology Volume 29, Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles, 2012, ISBN 978-0-916984-82-3 , pp. 308-309

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DF Thomson, W. Hosmer: A preliminary account of the herpetology of the Great Sandy Desert of central Western Australia: reptiles and amphibians of the Bindibu Expedition , Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 77, 1963, p. 234.