Olive Griffith Stull (Davis) (February 10, 1905 – June 15, 1969) 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 ...

. Stull was born in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

. She married Loy Davis in 1930, one year after completing her degree at 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 ...

. She worked in the field of veterinary medicine and contributed to research in a variety of fields. Her appointments included fellowships at Harvard's

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and at her alma mater, where she was a student of

Alexander Grant Ruthven Alexander Grant Ruthven (April 1, 1882 – January 19, 1971) was a herpetologist, zoologist and the President of the University of Michigan from 1929 to 1951. Biography Alexander Grant Ruthven was born in 1882 in Hull, Iowa. He graduated from ...

. She published an important revision of the colubrid snake genus ''

Pituophis ''Pituophis'' is a genus of nonvenomous colubrid snakes, commonly referred to as gopher snakes, pine snakes, and bullsnakes, which are endemic to North America. Geographic range Species and subspecies within the genus ''Pituophis'' are found ...

'',Variations and relationships in the snakes of the genus Pituophis. ''Bulletin of the United States National Museum'' (175): 1-225 and is the author of the species '' Pituophis ruthveni'' whose name honours her professor at Michigan. In a review of her revision in ''

Copeia ''Ichthyology & Herpetology'' (formerly ''Copeia'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in ichthyology and herpetology that was originally named after Edward Drinker Cope, a prominent American researcher in these fiel ...

'', Klauber was critical of her indiscriminate acceptance of reported localities of specimens in the genus. Stull also described a subspecies, '' Python curtus brongersmai'', a commercially harvested snake of the Malay peninsula, which has since been reclassified as a distinct species '' Python brongersmai''. She conducted research in a variety of other areas, most notably into the physiology and distribution of snakes. Her works include papers on the taxonomy of

Serpentes Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints ...

and she is the

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

of descriptions of many species. She was later employed as an agent of the

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

to investigate the diseases of poultry and avian leukosis. The abbreviation Stull is used in zoological nomenclature for citations of this author.

References

External links

''The Michigan Alumnus''
with mentions of Stull's dates of birth and death American herpetologists American taxonomists 1905 births 1969 deaths Herpetologists Women zoologists Women taxonomists University of Michigan alumni University of Michigan faculty Harvard University staff 20th-century American zoologists 20th-century American women scientists American women academics {{US-zoologist-stub