Karl Patterson Schmidt
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Karl Patterson Schmidt (born June 19, 1890 in Lake Forest, Illinois, died September 26, 1957 in Chicago) was a notable American herpetologist.
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[edit] Biography
Schmidt was the son of a German who was professor in a higher educational establishment in Lake Forest. His family left the city in 1907 and settled to Wisconsin to work on a farm where his mother and his younger brother later died in a fire.[1] In 1913 he entered the Cornell University to study biology and geology. In 1915 he found his preference for the herpetology during a four month training course at the Perdee Oil Company in Louisiana.[2] In 1916 he received his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree and made his first geological expedition to Santo Domingo. From 1916 to 1922 he worked as scientific assistant for herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York under the well-known American herpetologists Mary Cynthia Dickerson and Gladwyn K. Noble. In 1919 he made his first collecting expedition to Puerto Rico. In 1922 he became the assistant curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. From 1923 to 1934 he made several collecting expeditions for that musem to Central and South America which led him to Honduras (1923), Brazil (1926), and Guatemala (1933-1934). In 1937 he became the editor of the herpetology and ichthyology journal Copeia which he stayed until 1949. In 1938 he served the U.S. Army. In 1941 he became the chief curator of zoology at the Field Museum which he stayed until his retirement in 1955. From 1942 to 1946 he was the president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). In 1953 he made his last expedition to Israel.
In 1957 he died from the consequences of the bite of a juvenile boomslang which was brought to his lab at the Field Museum in Chicago. He underestimated the fatal dose of this bite which was 28 hours before his death and missed to undergoing medical treatment with an antiserum.
Schmidt was one of the most important herpetologists in the 20th century. Though he made only a few important discoveries by himself he named more than 200 species. Species which include "karlschmidti" in its name were all named by or in honour of him. He wrote more than 200 articles and books, including Living Reptiles of the World which became an international bestseller.
[edit] Works (selected)
- Homes and Habits of Wild Animals (1934).
- Our Friendly Animals and When They Came (1938).
- Field Book of Snakes of the United States and Canada with Delbert Dwight Davis (1908-1965).
- Principles of Animal Ecology with Warder Clyde Allee (1885-1955) and Alfred Edwards Emerson (1896-1976) (1949).
- A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles (1953).
- Living Reptiles of the World with Robert Frederick Inger (1920-) (1957).
[edit] References
- ^ A History of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History by Charles W. Myers
- ^ French Wikipedia
