John Van Denburgh (August 23, 1872 – October 24, 1924) was an American
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...
from
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
(who also used the name Van Denburgh in publications, hence this name is used below).
Biography
Van Denburgh was born in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
and enrolled at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
in 1891. As of 1895, he organized the herpetology department of the
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
. In 1897, he received a
Ph.D. from Stanford University and earned a
M.D. from
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for mos ...
in 1902. Subsequently, he practiced medicine in San Francisco, while again serving as curator of the herpetological collections of the California Academy of Sciences.
After the
San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he was instrumental in rebuilding the lost herpetology collections through new expeditions and also acquisitions of other collections. In 1922, he published the two-volume ''The Reptiles of Western North America''.
He died in 1924 while on vacation in
Honolulu
Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...
, Hawaii.
Taxa named by and in honor of Van Denburgh
Van Denburgh discovered and described at least 38 species or reptiles in a series of papers and books published between 1895 and 1922.
Van Den Burgh is commemorated in the scientific names of one species and three subspecies of reptiles: ''
Aspodoscelis tigris vandenburghi'', ''
Diadophis punctatus vandenburgii'', ''
Sceloporus graciosus vandenburgianus'', ''
Scincella vandenburghi'',
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Van Denburgh", pp. 271-272).] and ''
Chelonoidis vandenburghi''.
References
Further reading
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External links
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1872 births
1906 San Francisco earthquake survivors
1924 deaths
20th-century American physicians
20th-century American zoologists
American herpetologists
American taxonomists
People associated with the California Academy of Sciences
Scientists from San Francisco
Physicians from California
Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Stanford University alumni
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni
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