Austin Roberts (zoologist)

Austin Roberts
Born (1883-01-03)3 January 1883
Pretoria
Died 5 May 1948(1948-05-05) (aged 65)
Lusikisiki
Nationality South Africa
Alma mater University of Pretoria
Scientific career
Fields Ornithology, Zoology
Institutions Transvaal Museum

Austin Roberts (3 January 1883 – 5 May 1948) was a South African zoologist. He is best known for his Birds of South Africa, first published in 1940. He also studied the mammalian fauna of the region: his work The mammals of South Africa was published posthumously in 1951. The 7th edition of Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa which appeared in 2005, is the standard work on the region's birds.

Life

Roberts, son of a church minister Alfred Roberts and flower painter Marianne Fannin, was born in Pretoria and grew up in Potchefstroom, South Africa. He gained much of his early knowledge of zoology from Thomas Ayres (1828–1913), one of South Africa's first amateur ornithologists. Roberts was employed by the Transvaal Museum from 1910 to 1946. From this base he studied the birds and mammals of South Africa. To further research, he established a collection of ca. 30,000 bird and 13,000 mammal specimens at the museum. He was author of several manuscripts and articles in scientific publications. In 1935 the University of Pretoria awarded him an honorary doctorate degree. Austin Roberts died on 5 May 1948 in a motor car accident in the Transkei region.

The Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary in Pretoria is named in his honour.

Also, a species of lizard, Pachydactylus robertsi, is named in his honour.[1]

Works

  • The Mammals of South Africa. Johannesburg: Trustees of the "Mammals of South Africa" Book Fund. 1954.
  • Our South African Birds (Ons Suid-Afrikaanse voëls). Cape Town: Cape Times. 1941. illustrated by Norman Lighton and Claude-Gibney Finch-Davies
  • The Birds of South Africa. Trustees of the South African Bird Book Fund. 1942.
  • Museums, higher vertebrate zoology and their relationship to human affairs, Pretoria: Carnegie Corporation Visitors Grants Committee, 1935
  • Descriptions of some new mammals [and] Some notes on birds and descriptions of new sub-species, Cambridge: University Press, 1919

References

  1. ↑ Beolens, Watkins & Grayson 2011, p. 223.

  • Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5.
  • Brain, Charles Kimberlin (1998). Austin Roberts: A lifelong devotion to South Africa's birds and beasts. Cape Town: John Voelcker Bird Book Fund. ISBN 0-620-22883-0.
  • Biography of Austin Roberts at the S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science.


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