Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee

Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee ( born January 4, 1901 in Rome, Italy, † 24 April 1984) was an American ornithologist Swiss origin. He comes from the Lucerne patrician family of Meyer Schauensee.

Life

Meyer de Schauensee was born as the son of Swiss baron Frederick Meyer de Schauensee and his American wife Matilda Toland in Rome. At Castle Schauensee, the country estate of his father, near Lucerne, he spent part of his childhood. He attended schools in Rome and Florence, before he and his mother in 1913 emigrated to the United States. In New York, he graduated from Hoosac School. As a young man showed Meyer de Schauensee great interest in the observation of birds, and so he kept at the residence of his mother in Wynnewood near Philadelphia, an aviary with exotic birds. In the 1920s, he attended the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with the ornithologist James Bond. In the aftermath Bond and Meyer de Schauensee worked together frequently in studies of Neotropical avifauna and wrote the first descriptions of scientific taxa, such as the Southern Helmhokko ( Pauxi unicornis ) and the Tolimataube ( Leptotila conoveri ). From 1926 collected Meyer de Schauensee live animals and bellows (especially snakes, fish and birds ) in Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil, Kenya, Southern Africa, China, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia. From 1935 he financed expeditions that went to the South Pacific, among others. So he was able to increase within 50 years the museum collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia from 80,000 to over 170,000 bellows. Meyer de Schauensee authored six books. Between 1948 and 1952 appeared "The Birds of the Republic of Colombia ", in 1964 he published " The Birds of Colombia " and 1966 " The Species of Birds of South America". In 1970 he published " A Guide to the Birds of South America ," which is considered in ornithological circles as his most important book. 1978 " A Guide to the Birds" of Venezuela was published and two weeks before his death in 1984 he published his last work, " The Birds of China." In addition, he translated Tommaso Salvatore Doris standard work "Birds of Borneo" into English.

With his wife Williamina W. Wentz Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee had two daughters.

Dedikationsnamen

After Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee among others, the following taxa are named: Amphiesma deschauenseei, Eunectes deschauenseei, Hyphesso schauenseei, Ortalis vetula deschauenseei, Rallus limicola meyerdeschauenseei and Tangara meyerdeschauenseei.

Works (selection)

• Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee: A Guide To The Birds Of South America, Museum of Natural History; Reprint edition, 1970; ISBN 978-0870980275
• Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, William H. Phelps, Guy Tudor: A Guide to the Birds of Venezuela. Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 153f ISBN 978-0691082059
• Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee: The Birds of China, Oxford University Press, 1984; ISBN 978-0198586029