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Excerpts from Baird and Girard Railroad Survey
S. C. Rafinesque (1783-1840)
• French Zoologist, botanist, geologist
• Erratic genius
• Moved to US (Kentucky)
• Described thousands of species (mostly plants)
• Proposed new classification systems
• Described a number of prominent genera:
– Notropis
– Pomoxis
– Noturus
– Hypentelium
– Aplodinotus
– Lepomis
Notropis rafinesque
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Louis Agassiz
• Swiss born, American zoologist.
• First to propose ice ages
• Last prominent creationist zoologist
• Ironically, published volumes on fossil fishes thus paving the way for evolutionary studies of fishes.
• Moved to the US in 1850’s after publishing Nomenclator Zoologicus, a list of all known genera.
• Harvard professor of Zoology and Geology
• Founded Ponikese Marine Lab (precursor to Woods Hole)
• Founded Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard)
• Student of Cuvier, Adviser to David Star Jordan
Apistogramma agassizi
David Starr Jordan (1851-1931)
• Would describe himself as North Americas greatest ichthyologist
• President of U of Indiana, Stanford
• 1372 publications, 645 ichthyological
• Published “Guide to the study of fishes”, “Days of a man” and “Fishes of North and Middle America” 4 volume set
Etheostoma jordani
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American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
• Founded in 1916, named in honor of Edward Drinker Cope, colleague of Jordan
• Publisher of journal Copeia since 1913
Nichols, J. T. "Notes on Fishes near New York." Copeia 1 (1913): 4
Carl Hubs
• Last collaborator of Jordan
• Refined Jordan’s North America work
• 707 publications
– Fishes of the Great Lakes Region
• Developed standard for morphological measurements of fishes
• Faculty at Scripts Institute of Oceanography
• Arguably the greatest ichthyologist of the century.
• Father of Clark Hubbs – current faculty member at U. Texas
Pteronotropis hubbsiGambusia clarkhubbsi
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Benjamin Leonard Covington Wailes (1797-1862)
• Educated at Jefferson College
• First serious studies of Mississippi fishes
• Large collection of fossil mollusks (now at LSU)
• Sent most of his collections to Agassiz at Harvard
Report on the Agriculture & Geology of Mississippi 1854
• Checklist included 51 marine and freshwater fish species, plus 12 listed by genus (24 taxa of freshwater fishes)
• List in diary indicates he recognized more species than were listed
• Work done by Wailes, report published by Agassiz
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Revealing A Fauna Mississippi in 1860
Wailes
Oliver Perry Hay (1846 – 1930)
• Replaced Jordan at Butler University
• Collecting expeditions to MS - in 1880 & 1881
• First to describe new species from Mississippi since Wailes - 11 still recognized
• Many years before any other surveys of MS took place
Hybognathus hayi
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Revealing A FaunaMississippi in 1880’s
Hay
Frances Adine Cook (1889-1964)
• 1927 – left graduate studies in ornithology & position at Smithsonian to return to Mississippi
• Established Mississippi Association for the Conservation of Wildlife, Served as Executive Secretary
• 1933-1958 – Director and Curator of State Museum
• 1933- invited Samuel F. Hildebrand to work on Mississippi fishes
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Revealing A FaunaMississippi in 1930’s
Hildebrand
Cook & WPA
• 1935: State Works Project funded statewide biological survey.
• Resulted in 1959 publication of the first state-wide treatise on Mississippi Fishes
– 154 freshwater fish species
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Revealing A FaunaMississippi in 1950’s
Cook & WPA
Stephen T. Ross
• Descendant of Agassiz and Jordan
• Trained at U. South Florida
• Compiled second work documenting fishes of Mississippi (Inland Fishes of Mississippi)
• Initiated cataloging his own collections into the USM Museum of Ichthyology
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USM Museum of Ichthyology Growth
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Inland Fishes ofMississippi
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Revealing A FaunaMississippi in 1970-2004
Ichthyological Collections
• Large collections in the Southeastern US
– Tulane, Northeastern Louisiana U, U of Tennessee, USM, U of Florida
• Why keep ichthyological collections?
• Specialist resource:
– archival storage
– revision studies (library)
– genetic analysis?
– distribution analysis
• Ecologist & fisheries scientist resource:
– life histories
– ageing
– vouchering specimens
• Teaching resource