William Louis Abbott

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William Louis Abbott (born February 23, 1860 in Philadelphia , † April 2, 1936 in Maryland ) was an American doctor , naturalist and ornithologist .

life and work

William Louis Abbott was born in Philadelphia in 1860 and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before working as a surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London. Because of his personal wealth, he decided not to work as a medic and instead to become a naturalist. Already from his youth and student days, together with Joseph Krider , he had built up a collection of bellows in Iowa and Dakota as well as in Cuba and San Domingo . In 1887 he went to East Africa and stayed there for two years. From 1890 to 1891 he was editor of the work Ethnological Collections in the United States National Museum from Kilima-Njaro, East Africa. From 1891 he studied the wildlife of the Indo-Malay Archipelago, using his Singapore- based ship Terrapin , and put on a collection of the mammals of Southeast Asia for the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC . In 1897 he went to Thailand and stayed there for 10 years to work the countries around the China Sea . In 1917 he returned to San Domingo to expand his collection. He later returned to the United States and stayed in Maryland, where he died in 1936.

Abbott put on extensive biological and ethnological collections. In his will, he bequeathed much of his collections and 20% of his property to the Smithsonian Institution .

Dedication names

Abbott honor are named numerous animal species, such as the Winkelkopfagamenart Gonocephalus abbotti , the day gecko Phelsuma abbotti , Papasula abbotti (of Abbott or Abbott's Booby ), the Abbott-Star ( Cinnyricinclus femoral ), the Raupenfängerart Coracina abbotti that Nektarvogelart Cinnyris abbotti and the Abbott duiker ( Cephalophus spadix ) from the group of duikers . A subspecies of the cap pittas is also named after WL Abbott.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009; P. 1; ISBN 978-0-8018-9304-9 .
  2. ↑ a b Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
  3. ↑ Bo Beolens, Watkins, Michael: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds . Christopher Helm, London 2003, p. 205.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Abbott, William Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American doctor, naturalist, and ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1936
Place of death Maryland