James A. Jobling is a British

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and author. Jobling is known for his work on the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of birds, writing and publishing one of the most comprehensive reference works on the

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the names of

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of birds around the world.

Biography

Jobling was initially a civil servant with experience in finance and land registration. Since childhood, he had an interest in the natural world, especially in birds and their names. He worked for several years writing the ''Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names'', published in 1991 by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. The ''Dictionary'' would later be reissued by British publisher Helm in 2010, under the name ''Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names''. Jobling became closely associated with

Lynx Edicions Lynx Nature Books, based in Barcelona, is a publishing company specializing in ornithology and natural history. The company was founded in 1989. It was formerly named Lynx Edicions. History Lynx Nature Books was founded as Lynx Edicions in Barce ...

through the creation and editing of the ''HBW Alive Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology'' (2014–2020), which was later incorporated into the

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

. This work would later be made a part of the online database

Birds of the World Birds of the World (BoW) is an online database of ornithological data adapted from the Handbook of the Birds of the World and contemporary reference works, including Birds of North America, Neotropical Birds Online, and Bird Families of the W ...

. He was a member of the

British Ornithologists' Union The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds (ornithology) around the world in order to understand their biology and aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henry Baker ...

and a committee member of the

British Ornithologists' Club The British Ornithologists' Club (BOC) aims to promote discussion between members and others interested in ornithology, and to facilitate the dissemination of scientific information concerned with ornithology. The BOC has a special interest in avi ...

Publications

* * * * * Jobling, James A. (1996). The Prince and the Republican. ''Bull. BOC'', 116(5). *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jobling, James A. 20th-century British zoologists British ornithologists British naturalists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)