R. I. Pocock

R. I. Pocock
Born	4 March 1863 Clifton, Bristol
Died	9 August 1947 (aged 84)
Nationality	British
Fields	Zoology
Institutions	Natural History Museum, London, London Zoo

Reginald Innes Pocock F.R.S.^[1] (4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British zoologist.^[2]

Pocock was born in Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev. Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He began showing interest in natural history at St. Edward's School, Oxford. He received tutoring in zoology from Sir Edward Poulton, and was allowed to explore comparative anatomy at the Oxford Museum. He studied biology and geology at University College, Bristol under Conwy Lloyd Morgan and William Johnson Sollas. In 1885 he became an assistant at the Natural History Museum, and worked in the section of Entomology for a year. He was put in charge of the collections of Arachnida and Myriapoda. He was also tasked with arranging the British birds collections, in the course of which he developed a lasting interest in ornithology. The 200 papers he published in his eighteen years at the museum soon brought him recognition as an authority on Arachnida and Myriapoda: he described between 300-400 species of millipede alone,^[3] and also described the scorpion genus Brachistosternus.^[4]

In 1904 he left to become Superintendent of London Zoo, remaining so until his retirement in 1923. He then worked, as a voluntary researcher, in the British Museum, in the mammals department.

He described the Leopon in a 1912 letter to The Field, based on examination of a skin sent to him by W. S. Millard, the Secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society.

His brother Edward Innes Pocock played international rugby for Scotland and was part of Cecil Rhodes' Pioneer Column. His great grandfather was marine artist Captain Nicholas Pocock.

Selected works

• Reginald Innes Pocock (1893). "On some points in the morphology of the Arachnida (s.s) with notes on the classification of the group". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 6 11: 1–19.
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1900) The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma – the Arachnida volume.
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1901). Some new and old genera of S.-American Aviculariidae. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) 8: 540-555.
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1902) Arachnida. Scorpiones, Pedipalpi, and Solifugae In Biologia Centrali-Americana. Arachnida.
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1903) On some genera and species of South-American Aviculariidae. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 7(11): 81-115
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1939) The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma – Mammalia Vol 1, Primates and Carnivora (in part).
• Reginald Innes Pocock (1941) The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma – Mammalia Vol 2, Carnivora :Aeluroidea, Arctoidea

References

1. Hindle, Edward (1948). "Reginald Innes Pocock. 1863-1947". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 6 (17): 189–126. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1948.0025. JSTOR 768917.
2. Schwarz, Ernest (1948). "Reginald Innes Pocock, F. R. S". Journal of Mammalogy 29 (1): 93. JSTOR 1375287.
3. Sierwald, Petra; Bond, Jason E. (1 January 2007). "Current Status of the Myriapod Class Diplopoda (Millipedes): Taxonomic Diversity and Phylogeny". Annual Review of Entomology 52 (1): 401–420. doi:10.1146/annurev.ento.52.111805.090210. PMID 17163800.
4. Jan Ove Rein (2012). "Bothriuridae Simon, 1880". The Scorpion Files. Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
5. "The Code Online". International Council of Zoological Nomenclature.

External links

• Works by or about R. I. Pocock at Internet Archive
• Works by Reginald Innes Pocock, at the Biodiversity Heritage Library