Dominic Louis Serventy (28 March 1904 – 8 August 1988) was a

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

-based

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

. He was president of the

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and bird conservation, conservati ...

(RAOU) 1947–1949. He assisted with the initial organisation of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

's series of Harold Hall Australian ornithological collecting expeditions during the 1960s, also participating in the third (1965) expedition.

Early life

He was born at Brown Hill, Western Australia to parents of

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

n origin. He was educated at the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

and

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

Career

He co-authored (with H. M. Whittell) of '' Birds of Western Australia'', (published in five editions between 1948 and 1976), and (with John Warham and his brother

Vincent Serventy Vincent Noel Serventy AM (6 January 1916 – 8 September 2007) was an Australian author, ornithologist and conservationist. Life and career Born in Armadale, Western Australia, the youngest of eight children of migrant Croatian parents ...

, a popular naturalist) of '' The Handbook of Australian Sea-birds'' (1971).

Legacy

He is commemorated by the RAOU's D.L. Serventy Medal which is awarded annually for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region. Dominic Serventy is commemorated in the

scientific name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of a species of Australian lizard, '' Ctenotus serventyi''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Serventy", p. 241). Dominic and Vincent Serventy are commemorated in the species' epithet of the extinct cormorant ''

Microcarbo serventyorum '' Microcarbo serventyorum'', also referred to as Serventys' cormorant, is an extinct species of small cormorant from the Holocene of Australia. It was described by Gerard Frederick van Tets from subfossil skeletal material (a pelvis with ...

'', described by

Gerard Frederick van Tets Gerard Frederick van Tets (19 January 1929 – 14 January 1995), otherwise known as Jerry van Tets, was a twentieth century British, Canadian and Australian ornithologist and palaeontologist. Born to Dutch parents, jhr. Hendrik Barthout van ...

in 1994.

Honours

* 1952 - elected a Fellow of the RAOU * 1956 - awarded the

Australian Natural History Medallion The Australian Natural History Medallion is awarded each year by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) to the person judged to have made the most meritorious contribution to the understanding of Australian Natural History. The idea origina ...

* 1970 - awarded the Tasmanian Royal Society Medal * 1972 - appointed Ridder (Knight) in the Most Excellent

Order of the Golden Ark The Most Excellent Order of the Golden Ark ( nl, Orde van de Gouden Ark) is a Dutch order of merit established in 1971 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. It is awarded to people for major contributions to nature conservation. Although not ...

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...

Notes

References

* Kloot, Tess. (1986). "A Regular Correspondence … On Matters Ornithological". ''La Trobe Journal'' 38: 42–4

Accessed 10 September 2007 * Robin, Libby. (2001). ''The Flight of the Emu: a hundred years of Australian ornithology 1901-2001''. Carlton, Vic. Melbourne University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Serventy, Dominic Louis Australian ornithologists 1904 births 1988 deaths 20th-century Australian zoologists