John Van Denburgh (August 23, 1872 – October 24, 1924) was an American
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians ( gymnophiona)) and rep ...
from
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
(who also used the name Van Denburgh in publications, hence this name is used below).
Biography
Van Denburgh was born in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and enrolled at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1891. As of 1895, he organized the herpetology department of the
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...
. In 1897, he received a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
from Stanford University and earned a
M.D.
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. ...
from
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...
in 1902. Subsequently, he practiced medicine in San Francisco, while again serving as curator of the herpetological collections of the California Academy of Sciences.
After the
San Francisco earthquake of 1906
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
he was instrumental in rebuilding the lost herpetology collections through new expeditions and also acquisitions of other collections. In 1922, he published the two-volume ''The Reptiles of Western North America''.
He died in 1924 while on vacation in
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
, Hawaii.
Taxa named by and in honor of Van Denburgh
Van Denburgh discovered and described at least 38 species or reptiles in a series of papers and books published between 1895 and 1922.
Van Den Burgh is commemorated in the scientific names of one species and three subspecies of reptiles: ''
Aspodoscelis tigris vandenburghi'', ''
Diadophis punctatus vandenburgii'', ''
Sceloporus graciosus vandenburgianus'', ''
Scincella vandenburghi'',
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Van Denburgh", pp. 271-272).] and ''
Chelonoidis vandenburghi''.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*.
1872 births
1906 San Francisco earthquake survivors
1924 deaths
20th-century American physicians
20th-century American zoologists
American herpetologists
American taxonomists
People associated with the California Academy of Sciences
People from San Francisco
Physicians from California
Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area
{{US-zoologist-stub