Peter Charles Howard Pritchard (June 26, 1943 – February 25, 2020) was a leading turtle zoologist. Pritchard was educated at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, where he received a Ph.D. and specialized in Zoology. He was most commonly known for his career of almost 40 years for the conservation of turtles. He worked with the World Wildlife Fund, spending four years there before joining Audubon Florida in 1973 as assistant executive director, senior vice president and acting president. In 1997, he founded a turtle conservation organization called the Chelonian Research Institute in

Oviedo, Florida Oviedo ( ) is a city in Seminole County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 33,342, representing an increase of 7,026 (26.7%) from the 26,316 counted in the 2000 Census. It is part of the Orlando– ...

. Scott A. Thomson, curator of the Chelonian Research Institute notes that the CRI has 14500 tortoise and turtle specimens registered with some 2000 unregistered specimens. The collection comprises 100% of all turtle genera, 86% of all species and 72% of all subspecies - the third largest and most complete collection in the world. Pritchard also travelled to

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

for his career, the

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

n country that is home to four of the world's seven known

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

species: the

leatherback The leatherback sea turtle (''Dermochelys coriacea''), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to and weights ...

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

hawksbill The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution, that is large ...

and the

olive ridley The olive ridley sea turtle (''Lepidochelys olivacea''), also known commonly as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a species of turtle in the family Cheloniidae. The species is the second-smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in ...

. He also named several species of turtle for example ''

Mesoclemmys zuliae The Zulia toad-headed sideneck (''Mesoclemmys zuliae''), also known Common name, commonly as the Zulia toad-headed turtle, is a species of turtle in the Family (biology), family Chelidae. The species is Endemism, endemic to Venezuela. Etymology ...

'' and ''

Chitra vandijki The Burmese narrow-headed softshell turtle (''Chitra vandijki''), also known commonly as the Myanmar narrow-headed softshell turtle and Van Dijk's chitra, is a species of turtle in the family Trionychidae. The species is endemic to Southeast ...

''. He also worked with the

Arawaks The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

during his turtle conservation experience in Guyana. Along the way, Pritchard's own scholarship has benefited from centuries' worth of tribal turtle knowledge. He has also done extensive study and written books about

alligator snapping turtle The alligator snapping turtle (''Macrochelys temminckii'') is a large species of turtle in the family Chelydridae. The species is native to freshwater habitats in the United States. ''M. temminckii'' is one of the heaviest freshwater turtles ...

s and Galapagos tortoises. Pritchard died on Febryary 25, 2020.

Eponyms

Pritchard is honored in the

scientific names In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of three turtles, ''Podocnemis pritchardi'' ,Wood RC (1997). "Turtles". In: Kay RF, Madden RH, Cifelli RL, Flynn JJ (editors). ''Vertebrate Paleontology in the Neotropics. The Miocene Fauna of La Venta, Colombia''. Washington, District of Columbia: Smithsonian Institution Press. '' Chelodina pritchardi'' and '' Mauremys pritchardi''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Pritchard", pp. 211-212).

References

External links

*Environmental Science Progra

Chelonian Research Institute official website of the Chelonian Research Institute in Oviedo, FL
*TIME.com: Heroes of the Plane

*Intervie

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pritchard, Peter 1943 births 21st-century American zoologists American herpetologists University of Florida College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni 2020 deaths English emigrants to the United States

Eponyms

References

Further reading

External links