James Donald Anderson, Jr. (August 16, 1930 – November 20, 1976) was an American herpetologist with 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 ...

and professor of zoology at Rutgers University who did extensive fieldwork studying '' Ambystoma'' and other salamander species in Mexico. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, on August 16, 1930, and grew up in the nearby town of Belleville. He attended the

Rutgers University–Newark Rutgers University–Newark is one of three regional campuses of Rutgers University, New Jersey's State University. It is located in Newark. Rutgers, founded in 1766 in New Brunswick, is the eighth oldest college in the United States and a me ...

College of Arts and Sciences and earned a B.A. in zoology in 1954. From 1954 to 1960 he was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, working under Robert C. Stebbins. Anderson returned to Rutgers University–Newark as a faculty member in 1960, and died from injuries sustained in a car accident on November 20, 1976.

Anderson's salamander Anderson's salamander (''Ambystoma andersoni'') is a neotenic salamander from Zacapu Lagoon in the Mexican state of Michoacán. This salamander is a relatively recent discovery, first described by Branden and Krebs in 1984. ''Ambystoma andersoni ...

(''Ambystoma andersoni'' ) is named after him. He published 150 peer-reviewed papers. His two most cited papers are: *"A Comparison of the Food Habits of ''Ambystoma macrodactylum sigillatum'', ''Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum'', and ''Ambystoma tigrinum californiense''". ''Herpetologica'' 24 (4) (Dec., 1968): 273–284. (cited 55 times according to Google Scholar); *"The Life History of the Mexican Salamander ''Ambystoma ordinarium'' Taylor". (with Richard D. Worthington). ''Herpetologica'' 27 (2) (Jun., 1971): 165–176. (cited 43 times according to Google Scholar).

References

American herpetologists 1930 births 1976 deaths Rutgers University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Rutgers University alumni People from Newark, New Jersey 20th-century American zoologists {{US-zoologist-stub