Lawrence Richard Heaney (born December 2, 1952, in Washington, DC ) is an American

mammalogist In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous systems. The archive of number of mammals on earth is constantly growin ...

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

and

biogeographer Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

. His research focus is the mammals of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Career

From June 1967 to June 1971, Heaney was a helper and museum technician at the Department of Mammals at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. From June 1971 to September 1971, Heaney worked as a collector for the

Delaware Museum of Natural History The Delaware Museum of Nature & Science (DMNH, formerly Delaware Museum of Natural History) is a museum located in Wilmington, Delaware. The museum was founded in 1957 by John Eleuthere du Pont near Greenville, Delaware; it opened in 1972 on a s ...

. From June 1972 to June 1975 he was a curator and research associate at the University of Minnesota. From June 1973 to August 1975 he was field and research assistant at the Smithsonian Institution. In June 1975, Heaney earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota. From August 1975 to May 1979 he was curatorial assistant, teaching and research assistant at the University of Kansas. In May 1978, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

and, in October 1979, his Ph.D. From September 1979 to August 1986, he was assistant professor at the department of biology and assistant curator at the department of mammals at the Museum of Zoology,

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. From 1986 to 1988 he was a research fellow and since 1988 he has been a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. Since 1991 he has been a research assistant at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

. From 1988 he was curator and since 2002 he has been head of the mammalogical department of the

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educationa ...

in Chicago, Illinois. In 2008, Heaney and his colleague Danilo S. Balete rediscovered the Blacktail Luzon Tree Rat ('' Pulomys melanurus'') on the Pulag on Luzon, a rodent that had been considered lost for 112 years.

Species described

Mammals described by Heaney include, among others, the Tawi-Tawi forest rat ('' Rattus tawitawiensis''), the Palawan Montane squirrel ('' Sundasciurus rabori),'' the Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat (''

Crateromys australis The Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat, Dinagat crateromys or Dinagat cloud rat (''Crateromys australis'') is a species of cloud rat in the family Muridae. It is one of the eight cloud rats found only in the Philippines, and is specifically endemic t ...

)'', the Dinagat Gymnure ('' Podogymnura aureospinula)'' and nine species of ''

Apomys ''Apomys'', commonly known as earthworm mice, is a genus of rodent endemic to the Philippines. Mice belonging to this genus are generally called Philippine forest mice and can be found on most islands of the Philippines The Philippines, ...

'': ''

Apomys aurorae The Aurora forest mouse (''Apomys aurorae'') is a small murine endemic to Mt. Mingan in Luzon, Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Loc ...

'', '' Apomys banahao'', ''

Apomys brownorum The Mount Tapulao forest mouse (''Apomys brownorum'') is a forest mouse endemic to the Mount Tapulao area in the Philippines. It is named after the American zoologist Barbara Elaine Russell Brown. Anatomy and physiology The mouse is the small ...

'', '' Apomys iridensis'', ''

Apomys magnus The Luzon giant forest mouse (''Apomys magnus'') is a forest mouse endemic to Luzon, Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the ...

'', '' Apomys minganensis'', ''

Apomys camiguinensis The Camiguin forest mouse (''Apomys camiguinensis'') is a forest mouse endemic to the island of Camiguin in the southern Philippines. It has large ears and eyes, a long tail and rusty-brown fur, and it feeds mostly on insects and seeds. This desc ...

'', '' Apomys lubangensis'' and '' Apomys sierrae''.

Names named after Heaney

In 1996, Pedro C. Gonzales and Robert S. Kennedy named the Panay Bark Rat (''

Crateromys heaneyi The Panay cloudrunner (''Crateromys heaneyi'') is the second-largest cloud rat, a squirrel-like rodent that is found on the island of Panay in the Philippines. It is the most endangered rodent species in Panay, and one of the only few known cloud ...

'') in his honor. In 1997,

Colin Groves Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist. Groves was professor of biological anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Education Born in Englan ...

honored Heaney in naming the subspecies '' Prionailurus bengalensis heaneyi'', the Bengal cat from the Philippine island of

Palawan Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...

Selected publications

* 1982 Mammals of Dinagat and Siargao islands, Philippines * 1983 Relationships of pocket gophers of the genome ''Geomys'' from the Central and Northern Great Plains * 1985 Systematics of Oriental pygmy squirrels of the genera Exilisciurus and Nannosciurus (Mammalia, Sciuridae) * 198
Island biogeography of mammals
* 199
Vanishing treasures of the Philippine rainforest
* 200
Frontiers of biogeography: new directions in the geography of nature
* 2006 The mammals and birds of Camiguin Island, Philippines, a Distinctive Center of Biodiversity * 201
Discovering diversity: studies of the mammals of Luzon Island, Philippines
* 201
The Mammals of Luzon Island. Biogeography and Natural History of a Philippine Fauna

References

External links

Lawrence Heaney at LinkedInLawrence R. Heaney: Curriculum Vitae at the Field Museum of Natural HistoryLawrence R. Heaney at Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heaney, Lawrence Richard American taxonomists 1952 births 21st-century American biologists 20th-century American biologists Living people University of Michigan staff