Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist.

Early life, family and education

Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the University of Utrecht in 1764.

Career

He became a lecturer on natural history at his alma mater, University of Utrecht. Fourteen letters survive of his correspondence with Carl Linnaeus between 1768 and 1775. He was a friend of Albert Schlosser, whose cabinet of "curiosities" of natural history he described. In 1783 he published 50 copies of an identification key of Edmé-Louis Daubenton's ''Planches enluminées'', the colored plates of illustrations for the

comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent F ...

's monumental '' Histoire Naturelle'' (published 1749–1789), assigning binomial scientific names to the plates. As many of these were the first Linnaean scientific names to be proposed, they remain in use. In 2017 the world list of birds maintained by Frank Gill and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union included 190 taxa for which Boddaert is cited as the

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The N ...

. Of these 112 are treated as species and 78 as

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

. One species, the hoopoe starling, is now extinct. In 1784 he published ''Elenchus Animalium'', a "directory of animals" that included the first binomial names for a number of mammals, including the Quagga and the Tarpan.

Honors and awards

Boddaert is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of South American snake, ''

Mastigodryas boddaerti ''Mastigodryas boddaerti'', commonly known as Boddaert's tropical racer, is a species of snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to tropical South America including Trinidad and Tobago. Distribution ''M. boddaerti'' occurs in Bol ...

''.

References

1730 births 1795 deaths 18th-century Dutch naturalists Dutch ornithologists People from Middelburg, Zeeland Utrecht University alumni Utrecht University faculty {{netherlands-scientist-stub