The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals

Preface

vii Preface Two of us, Bo Beolens and Mike Watkins, wrote Whose Bird? which was published in November 2003. A review of Whose Bird? was written by Nicholas Gould for the journal International Zoo News. Gould suggested that there could be a need forsimilarvolumesonotheranimalclasses,andamongthemhesuggestedmammals. We wish to give credit and thanks here to the person whose suggestion began the conversations that led to our writing of this book. As there are only about half as many mammal species as bird species, we assumed our new book would not be as long as Whose Bird? How wrong we were! It turns out that there are a very large number of people who have only one mammal species named after them. Given that one man, Oldfield Thomas of the British Museum of Natural History , seemed to have described half of the mammal species ever discovered, we also assumed our research task would prove much easier than it had been for Whose Bird? Wrong again. But in the end it paid off, and the book you hold is the result not only of our perseverance, but of the labors of many people who assisted us without hesitation. We are deeply indebted to the following people and organizations for their generous help with research and, where needed, translations: Mark A. Adams, Researcher, Evolutionary Biology Unit, South Australian Museum, Australia; Cleber J. R. Alho, Conservação e Uso Sustentável da Biodiversidade, Brasília, Brazil; Mike Archer, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia; Dickon and Ito Corrado, Tokyo, Japan;Sylvie Coten-Watkins,Montmorency, France;GaborCsorba,DeputyDirector, CuratorofMammals,HungarianNaturalHistoryMuseum,Budapest,Hungary;Ross Cunningham, Canberra ACT, Australia; Fritz Dieterlen, Staatlisches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany; Peter D. Dwyer, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia; Louise H. Emmons, Research Associate at the Smithsonian Division of Mammals, Washington DC, USA; Tim Flannery, Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia; Pavel German, Wildlife Images, New South Wales, Australia; Nicholas Gould, International Zoo News, Orkney, Scotland; David L. Harrison , Harrison Zoological Museum Trust, England; Lawrence R. Heaney, Curator of Mammals, Department of Zoology, University of Chicago, USA; Colin Higgins, Bat Conservation Trust, London, UK; Geoffrey Hope, Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; Kim M. Howell, Professor of Zoology and Marine Biology, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ; Tony M. Hutson, East Sussex, England, UK; Rainer Hutterer, Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany; Paula D. Jenkins, Collections Manager, Mammal viii preface CurationGroup,NaturalHistoryMuseum,London;VinerKhabibullin,BashkirState University, Ufa City, Bashkortostan, Russia; Rael and Helena Loon, South Africa; Tim May, London, England; David Minter, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Philip Myers, Associate Professor and Associate Curator of Mammals, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, USA; Bruce Patterson, MacArthur Curator, Department of Zoology (Mammals), Field Museum, Chicago, USA; Heather Prestridge, Assistant Curator,TexasCooperativeWildlifeCollection,DepartmentofWildlifeandFisheries, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA; Gavin J. Prideaux, Research Fellow, Western Australian Museum, Perth, Australia; Eric Rickart, Curator of Vertebrates, Utah Museum of Natural History, University of Utah, USA; Jevgeni Shergalin, Tallinn, Estonia; Steve Van Dyck, Senior Curator of Vertebrates, Queensland Museum, Brisbane , Australia; Manfred Warth, Staatlisches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany; Charles Watkins, Montmorency, France; Nicholas Watkins, Oxford, England ; Suzanne Watkins, Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, England; Chris Watts, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, Australia. ...