Horace Burrington Baker (1889–1971) was an American

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

.Coan E. V. & Kabat A. R. (January 27, 2017)
2,400 years of malacology, 14th ed.
1443 pp. American Malacological Society. He was born in

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...

, and after serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1917–18, was awarded a PhD in 1920 by the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He became a zoologist specializing in malacology. He was an instructor at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1920, an assistant professor in 1926, an associate professor in 1928 and professor from 1939 to 1959. He was also business manager (1932–56) and editor (1957–70) of the ''

Nautilus The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in t ...

'', the journal of malacology. His spouse was Bernadine C. Baker (1906). A species of snake, ''

Leptodeira ''Leptodeira'' is a genus of colubrid snakes commonly referred to as cat-eyed snakes. The genus consists of 17 species that are native to primarily Mexico and Central America, but range as far north as the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas in Uni ...

bakeri'', is named in his honor.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Baker, H. B.", p. 15).

Bibliography

(1938–1941) ''Zonitid snails from Pacific islands''.

References

1889 births 1971 deaths People from Sioux City, Iowa American malacologists University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American zoologists University of Pennsylvania faculty {{US-zoologist-stub