The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals

A

1 Abbott Abbott’s Duiker Cephalophus spadix True, 1890 Abbott’s Grey Gibbon Hylobates muelleri abbotti Kloss, 1929 Dr. William Louis Abbott (1860–1936) was a student, naturalist, and collector. He initially qualified as a medical doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital in London. However, he decided not to pursue medicine but instead to use his private wealth for scientific exploration . In 1880, as a student, he had collected in Iowa and Dakota, and in 1883 in Cuba and San Domingo. In 1887 he went to East Africa, spending two years there. From 1891 he studied the wildlife of the Indo-Malayan region, using his Singapore-based ship Terrapin, and made large collections of mammals from Southeast Asia for the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) in Washington, DC, USA. In 1897 he switched to Siam (Thailand ) and spent 10 years exploring and collecting in and around the China Sea. He provided much of the Kenya material in the Smithsonian and was the author of “Ethnological Collections in the United States National Museum from Kilima-Njaro, East Africa,” published in the museum’s Annual Report for 1891. In 1917 he returned to San Domingo (Hispaniola), exploring the interior. He retired to Maryland but continued his lifelong study of natural history until his death. He is also commemorated in the names of several birds, such as Abbott’s Babbler Malacocincla abbotti and Abbott’s Starling Cinnyricinclus femoralis, and of a lizard, Abbott’s Day Gecko Phelsuma abbotti. The duiker is found in the highlands of Tanzania and the gibbon in western Borneo. Abe Abe’s Whiskered Bat Myotis abei Yoshikura, 1944 [Alt. Sakhalin Myotis] Yoshio Abe (1883–1945) was Professor of Zoology at Karahuto Normal University. Makoto Yoshikura, who described the bat, studied there under him. In his description Yoshikura says that the bat is named to commemorate Professor Abe and to express sincere gratitude for the guidance and instruction he provided. In 1930 Professor Abe was the first Japanese scientist to study and publish on kinorhynchs (microscopic marine invertebrates), and one, Dracoderes abei, was named after him as late as 1990 in recognition of his studies. The bat is known only from the type specimen found on the island of Sakhalin (now part of Russia but occupied by Japan in 1944). It was only in 1956 that Yoshikura decided on the English name Abe’s Whiskered Bat in his paper “Insectivores and Bats of South Sakhalin.” A study published in 2004 concluded that this “species” is not valid and should be regarded as a junior synonym of Daubenton’s Bat Myotis daubentoni. Abel Sumatran Orangutan Pongo abelii Lesson, 1827 Dr. Clarke Abel (1780–1826) was a British physician and naturalist. He was Chief Medical Officer and Naturalist to the Embassy of Lord Amherst to the Court of Peking from 1816 to 1817; this was Britain’s second attempt at establishing relations with the Emperor of China. After detailed observation and collection of assorted cultivated and wild plants on the way to and back from the capital, he wrote Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China and of a Voyage to and from That Country, in 1816 and 1817. ReA 2 turning from China in 1818, Abel was subsequently appointed Physician to Lord Amherst in India, where he later died. At some point he was shipwrecked and all of his original collections went down with the ship, but he continued to collect while in Batavia (now Jakarta), where he acquired the orangutan skin. The familiar garden plant abelia is named after him. The orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra were formerly regarded as a single species, but the Sumatran form is now usually accorded the status of a full species. Abert Abert’s Squirrel Sciurus aberti Woodhouse, 1853 Colonel John James Abert (1788–1863) was an American military man and engineer. He studied at West Point from 1808 until 1811 but resigned from the army on the very day that he graduated. He was then employed by the War Office and studied law, being admitted to the Bar in the District of Columbia in 1813. During the War of 1812 he served as a private for the defense of the capital, which was sacked and burned by the British army. In 1814 he was reappointed to the army with the rank of Major of Topographical Engineers. From 1816 to 1824 he was based mainly on the Atlantic coast. In...