John Edwards Hill (11 June 1928 – 6 May 1997) was a British

mammalogist In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part o ...

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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, 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 The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

's Meteorological Office as a Meteorological Assistant. He then served in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

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 Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, 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) The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

'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 Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

''. Hill was well-regarded for his work with

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

s; Australian mammalogist

Tim Flannery Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, Conservation biology, conservationist, Exploration, explorer, author, Science communication, science communicator, activist and p ...

referred to him as a "bat expert." He described a number of bat species, including the

Kitti's hog-nosed bat Kitti's hog-nosed bat (''Craseonycteris thonglongyai''), also known as the bumblebee bat, is a near-threatened species of bat and the only extant member of the family Craseonycteridae. It occurs in western Thailand Thailand ( ), histor ...

. 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 ''Hipposideros'' is one of the most diverse genera of bats, with more than 70 species. They are collectively called roundleaf bats after the shape of their nasal ornament. It is the type genus of the family Hipposideridae. It is divided into spe ...

'', '' Philetor'', ''

Laephotis ''Laephotis'' (known as the African long-eared bat) is a genus of bats in the family Vespertilionidae. Species within this genus are: * Angolan long-eared bat (''Laephotis angolensis'') * Botswanan long-eared bat (''Laephotis botswanae'') * Cape ...

'', ''

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'', ''

Mystacina ''Mystacina'' is the sole surviving genus of the family Mystacinidae. The New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat is the only member of this group confirmed to survive today, since the closely related New Zealand greater short-tailed bat The New Z ...

'', as well as the mouse-tailed bat 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

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

s 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,

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, ''

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