Reginald Innes Pocock,
(4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British
zoologist.
Pocock was born in
Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev.
Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He began showing interest in natural history at
St. Edward's School,
Oxford. He received tutoring in zoology from
Sir Edward Poulton, and was allowed to explore comparative anatomy at the
Oxford Museum. He studied
biology and
geology at
University College, Bristol, under
Conwy Lloyd Morgan and
William Johnson Sollas. In 1885, he became an assistant at the
Natural History Museum, and worked in the section of
entomology for a year. He was put in charge of the collections of
Arachnida and
Myriapoda. He was also given the task to arrange the British birds collections, in the course of which he developed a lasting interest in ornithology. The 200 papers he published in his 18 years at the museum soon brought him recognition as an authority on Arachnida and Myriapoda; he described between 300 and 400 species of
millipedes alone, and also described the
scorpion genus ''
Brachistosternus''. In 1929, he proposed the family
Nandiniidae, with the genus ''
Nandinia'' as its sole member. He argued that it differs from the
Aeluroidea by the structure and shape of its ear canal and
mastoid part of the temporal bone.
In 1904, he left to become superintendent of the
London Zoo, remaining so until his retirement in 1923. He then worked, as a voluntary researcher, in the British Museum, in the mammals department.
He described the
leopon in a 1912 letter to ''The Field'', based on examination of a skin sent to him by
W. S. Millard, the secretary of the
Bombay Natural History Society.
His brother
Edward Innes Pocock played international rugby for Scotland and was part of Cecil Rhodes'
Pioneer Column. His great grandfather was marine artist Captain
Nicholas Pocock.
Selected works
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References
External links
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Works by Reginald Innes Pocock at the
Biodiversity Heritage Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocock, Reginald Innes
1863 births
1947 deaths
Scientists from Bristol
British zoologists
Fellows of the Royal Society
British arachnologists
Zoo directors
People educated at St Edward's School, Oxford
Myriapodologists
Members of the Bombay Natural History Society
Artists' Rifles soldiers