Franklin James White Schmidt (July 25, 1901, in

Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest ...

– August 7, 1935, in

Stanley, Wisconsin Stanley is a city in Chippewa and Clark counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 3,608 at the 2010 census. Of this, 3,602 were in Chippewa County, and 6 in Clark County. History Stanley was settled and platted in 1881 whe ...

) was an American naturalist, noted as one of the first practitioners of the field of "wildlife management". Hired by Wisconsin, Schmidt's main work was on the prairie grouse, and its habits in the central marshes of Wisconsin. He published one paper on feeding habits of the grouse. At the time of his death in a house fire at his home, he planned to start a consulting service to assist other Midwestern states in managing the prairie grouse, which would have also allowed him to continue to collect even more information on the species. Seven other papers in preparation on the prairie grouse were destroyed in the fire that killed Schmidt and his mother. Also consumed by the flames were many other field samples. Regarding rodents and reptiles, Schmidt published five papers. In the 1920s Schmidt worked for Chicago's

Field Museum 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 educational ...

, and he participated in their expeditions to South America and Guatemala. On a 1934 expedition to Guatemala he collected many

ectoparasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...

of mammals, including the batfly ''Joblingia schmidti'', which is named for him. His

painted turtle The painted turtle (''Chrysemys picta'') is the most widespread native turtle of North America. It lives in slow-moving fresh waters, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They have been shown to prefer l ...

paper with

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

established the modern view of that genus as a single species with multiple subspecies. Schmidt's brother,

Karl Patterson Schmidt Karl Patterson Schmidt (June 19, 1890 – September 26, 1957) was an American herpetologist. Family Schmidt was the son of George W. Schmidt and Margaret Patterson Schmidt. George W. Schmidt was a German professor, who, at the time of Karl ...

, who lived thirty years longer, was a noted herpetologist, who died by snakebite.

Works

*(1926). "List of the Amphibans and Reptiles of Worden Township, Clark County, Wisconsin". ''Copeia'' (154): 131–132. *(1927). "''Pitymys pinetorum scalopsoides'' in Wisconsin". ''Journal of Mammalogy'' 8: 248. *(1931). "The mammals of western Clark County, Wisconsin". ''J. Mammal.'' 12: 99–117, 1 map. *(1936). "The winter food of Sharp-tailed Grouse and Pinnated Grouse in Wisconsin". ''Wilson Bulletin'' 48: 186–203. ;With Sherman C. Bishop *(1931). "The painted turtles of the genus ''Chrysemys'' ". ''Publications of the Field Museum of Natural History, Zoological Series'' 18: 121–139, figures 1-27. ;With Karl Patterson Schmidt *(1925). "New coral snakes from South America". ''Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Zool. Ser.'' 12: 127–134, Plates 11-12.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Franklin J. W. 1901 births 1935 deaths American herpetologists 20th-century American zoologists Deaths from fire in the United States People from Lake Forest, Illinois Accidental deaths in Wisconsin