Bruce Beehler

Bruce McPherson Beehler ( born October 11, 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American ornithologist, ecologist and conservationist. He is considered an expert on the avifauna of New Guinea.

Life and work

Bruce Beehlers parents William Henry and Cary Beehler (nee Baxter) were merchants. In 1974, he graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts Bachelor of Arts. In 1978 he received his Master of Arts degree from Princeton University. In 1983 he received his doctorate with his dissertation "The Behavioral Ecology of four Birds of Paradise " to the Ph.D.. Beehlers work focuses on the conservation biology and tropical ecology. Since 1975 he has been studying the biodiversity of New Guinea. International created a stir his initiated by the organization Conservation International expedition into the largely unexplored Foja Mountains West New Guinea in December 2005, where he and his team reach the discovery of some 40 new species and the world's first photos of the Berlepschen ray bird of paradise and the Yellow-crowned gardener. In a new expedition to the Foja Mountains in June 2007, accompanied by a film crew from the news magazine 60 Minutes, he discovered a new Riesenbaumrattenart and a new Schlafbeutlerart. He also traveled to India, Madagascar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Panama, and the Ivory Coast. Beehler wrote several books about the birds and the ecology of New Guinea, including Upland birds of northeastern New Guinea: A guide to the hill and mountain birds of Morobe Province ( 1978), Species - checklist of the birds of New Guinea (1985 ), Birds of New Guinea (1986 ), A Naturalist in New Guinea (1991 ), The Birds of Paradise (1998), The Ecology of Indonesian Papua ( 2 volumes) (2007) and Lost Worlds: Adventures in the tropical rainforest (2008).

Since 1982 married Bruce Beehler with Carol Elizabeth Hare ( a graphic designer ). In 2007, he named the wattled ( Melipotes carolae ) after his wife.

Ehrentaxa

Sidney Dillon Ripley in 1977 named the New Ireland - South Sea subspecies of Turdus poliocephalus beehleri ​​by Beehler, in 1976, the holotype collected. 1999 honored the botanist Wayne Takeuchi from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bruce Beehler with the epithet of the plant species Glochidion beehleri ​​from the family of Phyllanthaceae that occurs in West New Guinea.