George Kruck Cherrie (August 22, 1865 – January 20, 1948) was an American naturalist and explorer. He collected numerous specimens on nearly forty expeditions that he joined for museums and several species have been named after him.

Early life and education

Cherrie was born in

Knoxville, Iowa Knoxville is a city in Marion County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,595 at the time of the 2020 census, an increase from 7,313 in the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Marion County. Knoxville is home of the National Sprint Ca ...

. When he was 12, he began working in saw mills before graduating from Iowa State College. He worked briefly at the college museum and then at Ward's Natural Science Establishment in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

Career

He worked briefly at a Cedar Rapids electric bulb factory before shifting to natural history. Originally educated and employed as a mechanical engineer, he was unsatisfied and decided to study

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

and taxidermy instead. Cherrie then left the US and travelled to the West Indies and Central America. During the period 1889–1897, he was employed as a curator of birds at the Costa Rica National Museum in

San José San José or San Jose (Spanish for Saint Joseph) most often refers to: *San Jose, California, United States *San José, Costa Rica, the nation's capital San José or San Jose may also refer to: Places Argentina * San José, Buenos Aires ** San ...

and the

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 ...

in Chicago. Cherrie collected for the Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring and the British Museum of Natural History and served on the staff of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

and the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

. He was Assistant Curator of

ornithology 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 ...

from 1894 to 1897 at the Chicago Natural History Museum, as the Field Museum was then called. He took part in about forty expeditions, mostly to Central and South America, including

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

's South American Expedition of 1913–1914, when Cherrie was collecting specimens for the

. In 1915, he went to Bolivia with the Alfred Collins-Garnet Day expedition. In 1925 he was the zoological collector for the

Simpson-Roosevelts Asiatic Expedition The James Simpson-Roosevelt Asiatic Expedition was a 1925 expedition sponsored by the Field Museum of Natural History and organized by Kermit Roosevelt and his brother Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Finance and organization James Simpson (1874–1939), ...

where he accompanied Theodore Roosevelt's sons Kermit and Theodore Jr. and

Charles Suydam Cutting Charles Suydam Cutting, CBE (January 17, 1889 – August 24, 1972) was an explorer, naturalist, society figure, philanthropist, and author. He travelled around the world on numerous expeditions including the Field Museum-Chicago Daily News Abyssin ...

Writings and honors

Cherrie recounted his experiences in his memoir ''Dark Trails: Adventures of a Naturalist'' (1930). He is commemorated in the names of a number of animals: a species of lizard, ''

Scincella cherriei ''Scincella cherriei'', commonly known as the brown forest skink and Cope's brown forest skink, is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is native to Central America and adjacent southeastern Mexico. Three subspecies are reco ...

''; four species of birds, including

Cherrie's tanager Cherrie's tanager (''Ramphocelus passerinii costaricensis'') is a medium-sized passerine bird. This tanager is a resident breeder in the Pacific lowlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. This bird was formerly known as the scarlet-rumped tanage ...

; and a species of mammal. In 1927, the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

made Cherrie an ''Honorary Scout'', a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...". The other eighteen men who were awarded this distinction were:

Roy Chapman Andrews Roy Chapman Andrews (January 26, 1884 – March 11, 1960) was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed C ...

, Robert Bartlett, Frederick Russell Burnham,

Richard E. Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...

James L. Clark James Lippitt Clark (18 November 1883 in Providence, Rhode Island – 1969) was a distinguished American explorer, sculptor and scientist. Following his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and his training at the Gorham Silver Company ...

Merian C. Cooper Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American filmmaker and Academy Award winner, as well as a former aviator who served as an officer in the United States Air Force and Polish Air Force. In film, he is credited a ...

, Lincoln Ellsworth,

Louis Agassiz Fuertes Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 7, 1874 Ithaca, New York – August 22, 1927 Unadilla, New York) was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction ...

, George Bird Grinnell,

Charles A. Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

Donald Baxter MacMillan Donald Baxter MacMillan (November 10, 1874 – September 7, 1970) was an American explorer, sailor, researcher and lecturer who made over 30 expeditions to the Arctic during his 46-year career. He pioneered the use of radios, airplanes, a ...

Clifford H. Pope Clifford Hillhouse Pope (April 11, 1899 – June 3, 1974) was a noted American herpetologist. He was the son of Mark Cooper Pope and Harriett Alexander (Hull) Pope, and grew up in Washington, Georgia. While in college in the summers of 1919 and ...

, George Palmer Putnam,

Kermit Roosevelt Kermit Roosevelt MC (October 10, 1889 – June 4, 1943) was an American businessman, soldier, explorer, and writer. A son of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, Kermit graduated from Harvard College, served in both Wo ...

Carl Rungius Carl Clemens Moritz Rungius (August 18, 1869 – October 21, 1959) was a leading American wildlife artist. He was born in Germany though he immigrated to the United States and he spent his career painting in the western United States and Can ...

Stewart Edward White Stewart Edward White (12 March 1873 – September 18, 1946) was an American writer, novelist, and spiritualist. He was a brother of noted mural painter Gilbert White. Personal life White was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Mary E. ( ...

, and Orville Wright.

Personal life

Cherrie died on January 20, 1948, in Newfane, Vermont at the age of 82.

Notes

References

*Mearns, B. and Mearns, R. ''The Bird Collectors''.

External links

Biography
* Letters to Ernst Hartert {{DEFAULTSORT:Cherrie, George 1865 births 1948 deaths American naturalists People from Iowa American ornithologists American explorers American zoologists