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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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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