Samuel Garman

Samuel Garman
Born	June 5, 1843 Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	September 30, 1927 (aged 84)[1]
Citizenship	American
Fields	Zoology

Samuel Walton Garman (June 5, 1843 – September 30, 1927), or "Garmann" as he sometimes styled himself,^[2] was a naturalist/zoologist from Pennsylvania. He became noted as an ichthyologist and herpetologist.^[2]

Biography

Garman was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, on 5 June 1843. In 1868 he joined an expedition to the American West with John Wesley Powell. He graduated from the Illinois State Normal University in 1870, and for the following year was principal of the Mississippi State Normal School. In 1871, he became professor of natural sciences in Ferry Hall Seminary, Lake Forest, Illinois, and a year later became a special pupil of Louis Agassiz.^[3] He was a friend and regular correspondent of the naturalist Edward Drinker Cope, and in 1872 accompanied him on a fossil hunting trip to Wyoming. In 1873 he became assistant director of herpetology and ichthyology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His work was mostly in the classification of fish, especially sharks, but also included reptiles and amphibians. Harvard College awarded him honorary degrees for his scientific work, B.S. in 1898 and A.M. in 1899.^[2]

Personal

While working at Harvard, he lived in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts. In 1895, he married Florence Armstrong of St. John, New Brunswick. They had a daughter.^[1]

Publications (selected)

• "On the reptiles and Batrachians of North America". Kentucky Geological Survey. 1883.
• "On West Indian Iguanidae and on West Indian Scincidae" 19. Bulletin of the Essex Institute. 1887.
• "The "Gila Monster"" 22. Bulletin of the Essex Institute. 1890.
• "The Discoboli. Cyclopteridæ, Liparopsidæ, and Liparididæ" 14 (2). Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. 1892.
• "The Cyprinodont" 19 (1). Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. 1895.
• "The Chismopnea (chimaeroids)" 40 (3). Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. 1911.
• "The Plagiostomia (Sharks, skates, and rays)" 36. Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. 1913.
• "The Galapagos tortoises" 30 (4). Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. 1917.

Notes

1. Hubert Lyman Clark (1931). "Garman, Samuel". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
2. Adler, Kraig (1989). Contributions to the history of herpetology. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-916984-19-9.
3.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Garman, Samuel". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

References

• Summers, Adam P.; Koob, Thomas J., eds. (1997). "A biographical sketch of Samuel Walton Garman". Plagiostomia - the Sharks, Skates and Rays (PDF). Los Angeles, CA: Benthic Press. Retrieved 9 March 2012.