Henry Sheldon Fitch (December 25, 1909 – September 8, 2009) was an American
herpetologist.
Fitch was born in
Utica, New York. When he was a year old, the family moved to
Medford in the
Rogue Valley in
Oregon. Growing up, he had a keen interest in all the reptiles he could find on his father's 116
acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imp ...
(0.5 km²) ranch. He recounts that he especially liked
snakes, because "the real bonus was in seeing horrified adults scatter."
In 1926, he enrolled at the
University of Oregon, but switched to
UC Berkeley for his graduate work. He obtained his
M.A. in 1933 and a
Ph.D. in
zoology in 1937. From 1938 to 1947, he worked for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) as a field biologist in the department of pest control, studying rodents such as
squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
s,
gophers, and
kangaroo rat
Kangaroo rats, small mostly nocturnal rodents of genus ''Dipodomys'', are native to arid areas of western North America. The common name derives from their bipedal form. They hop in a manner similar to the much larger kangaroo, but developed thi ...
s.
He served from 1941 to 1945 in the Medical Corps as an army pharmacist, stationed initially in the
United Kingdom, then
France, and finally in
Germany. In 1946, he married Virginia Ruby Preston, with whom he had three children. In 1948, Fitch accepted a position as Superintendent of the
University of Kansas Natural History Reservation and instructor of zoology, where he could again pursue his studies of
snakes and
lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
s. He became assistant professor in 1949 and full professor in 1958.
From 1965 on, he did extensive field work in
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
,
Mexico,
Ecuador, and the
Dominican Republic. In 1976, he took up field work in
Nicaragua and succeeded in getting a five-year-plan for ''
Ctenosaura'' conservation, which was instituted in the 1980s. He retired in 1980, but was still an active herpetologist as of 2006, collecting snakes and publishing papers.
On September 8, 2009 he died in the home of his daughter and son-in-law in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Taxon named in his honor
Fitch is commemorated in the scientific name of a snake, ''
Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi'',
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Fitch, H. S.", p. 90).] a subspecies of the
common garter snake; and an
anole
Dactyloidae are a family of lizards commonly known as anoles () and native to warmer parts of the Americas, ranging from southeastern United States to Paraguay. Instead of treating it as a family, some authorities prefer to treat it as a subfami ...
, ''
Anolis fitchi
''Anolis fitchi'', Fitch's anole, is a species of lizard in the family Dactyloidae, named for American herpetologist Henry S. Fitch. The species is found in
Colombia and Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' ...
'', "Fitch's anole."
[Department of Defense Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation: "The Department of Defense Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Network Salutes Dr. Henry S. Fitch for his Service to the Military and Contributions to Herpetology", ''Short Biographies of Military Veteran Herpetologists'', https://www.denix.osd.mil/dodparc/parc-resources/education-and-outreach/military-veteran-herpetologist-biography-dr-henry-s-fitch/, last accessed 21 June 2019.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitch, Henry Sheldon
1909 births
2009 deaths
American herpetologists
People from Utica, New York
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Scientists from New York (state)
20th-century American zoologists