John Edwards Hill (11 June 1928 – 6 May 1997) was a British mammalogist who described 24 species and 26 subspecies during his career.

Early life and education

Hill was born on 11 June 1928 in the small hamlet of

Colemans Hatch Hartfield is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The parish also includes the settlements of Colemans Hatch, Hammerwood and Holtye, all lying on the northern edge of Ashdown Forest. Geography The main ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

, England. He was the only child of Marjorie Edwards and her husband Albert Hill. He attended

East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...

Grammar School on scholarship. During World War II, his father worked as a gardener and his mother as a housekeeper. Hill finished Grammar School after the war in 1946 at eighteen years old.

Career

After finishing school, Hill joined the Air Ministry's Meteorological Office as a Meteorological Assistant. He then served in the Royal Air Force for two years as a Meteorological Assistant, during which he traveled to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, Singapore, and the

Nicobar Islands The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the Indian s ...

. In 1948, he began working as an Assistant Experimental Officer at the British Museum (Natural History)'s Department of Zoology. He retired from the Museum 40 years later in 1988. From 1974 to his death in 1997, Hill was on the editorial board of the journal '' Mammalia''. Hill was well-regarded for his work with bats; Australian mammalogist Tim Flannery referred to him as a "bat expert." He described a number of bat species, including the Kitti's hog-nosed bat. He also published major revisions of several bat

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

, including '' Hipposideros'', '' Philetor'', '' Laephotis'', ''

Scotoecus ''Scotoecus'' is a genus of bats in the family Vespertilionidae Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilion ...

'', ''

Hesperoptenus Hesperoptenus is a genus of bats within the Vespertilionidae or Vespertilionidae, vesper bat family. The species within this genus are: *Blanford's bat (''Hesperoptenus blanfordi'') *False serotine bat (''Hesperoptenus doriae'') *Gaskell's fals ...

'', '' Mystacina'', as well as the

mouse-tailed bat Mouse-tailed bats are a group of insectivorous microbats of the family Rhinopomatidae with only three to six species, all contained in the single genus ''Rhinopoma''. They are found in the Old World, from North Africa to Thailand and Sumatra, in ...

family, Rhinopomatidae. Altogether, Hill described 24 new species of mammal and 26

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

. Of that total, 13 were rodents and 37 were bats.

Awards and honors

In 1985, the

American Society of Mammalogists The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) was founded in 1919. Its primary purpose is to encourage the study of mammals, and professions studying them. There are over 4,500 members of this society, and they are primarily professional scientists ...

elected Hill as an honorary member. Several species of mammal are named after Hill, including the

Hills' horseshoe bat The Hills' horseshoe bat (''Rhinolophus hillorum'') is a species of bat in the family Rhinolophidae. It is found in Cameroon, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria. Its natural habitats are subtropical and tropical moist lowland and montane forest, ...

Hill's sheath-tailed bat Hill's sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous hilli'') is a bat of the family Emballonuridae. They are found in the deserts of central Australia. Taxonomy The description of the species was published by Darrell Kitchener in 1980, reclassifying bats th ...

Hill's roundleaf bat Hill's roundleaf bat (''Hipposideros edwardshilli'') is a species of bat in the family Hipposideridae endemic to Papua New Guinea. Taxonomy Hill's roundleaf bat was described as a new species in 1993 by Tim Flannery and Donald Colgan. The holoty ...

, ''

Sturnira koopmanhilli ''Sturnira koopmanhilli'' is a species of leaf-nosed bat found in South America. Taxonomy It was described as a new species in 2006. The holotype had been collected in 1991 in Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Reserve—a nature reserve in Ecua ...

'', and

Hill's shrew Hill's shrew (''Crocidura hilliana'') is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is found in Thailand and Laos. References

Crocidura, Hill's shrew Mammals of Laos Mammals of Thailand Mammals described in 1995, Hill's shrew {{wh ...

Selected publications

* * *

Personal life and death

Hill married Brenda Morphew in 1955; together they had a daughter, Sandra. He died on 6 May 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, John Edwards 1928 births 1997 deaths British mammalogists People from Hartfield 20th-century British zoologists