Rollo Beck

Rollo Howard Beck
BornAugust 26, 1870
Los Gatos, California
DiedNovember 22, 1950 (1950-11-23) (aged 80)
Planada, California[1]
Education8th grade
Known forCatalog of Regional Biodiversity
SpouseIda Menzies
Scientific career
FieldsOrnithology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
PatronsLionel Walter Rothschild, Leonard C. Sanford, Harry Payne Whitney

Rollo Howard Beck (26 August 1870 – 22 November 1950) was an American ornithologist, bird collector for museums, and explorer.[2][3] Beck's petrel and three taxa of reptiles are named after him, including a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise, Chelonoidis nigra becki from Volcán Wolf. A paper by Fellers examines all the known taxa named for Beck.[4] Beck was recognized for his extraordinary ability as a field worker by Robert Cushman Murphy as being "in a class by himself,"[5] and by University of California at Berkeley professor of zoology Frank Pitelka as "the field worker" of his generation.[6]

  1. ^ American Museum of Natural history http://data.library.amnh.org/archives-authorities/id/amnhp_1000142
  2. ^ Pitelka, Frank A. 1986. Rollo Beck - Old-school collector, member of an endangered species. American Birds 40(3): 385-387.
  3. ^ Dumbacher, John P. and West, Barbara. 2010. Collecting Galápagos and the Pacific: How Rollo Beck shaped our understanding of evolution. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 4th Series, Vol. 61, Suppl. II, No. 13, pp. 211-243. http://research.calacademy.org/sites/research.calacademy.org/files/Departments/Darwin%20PCAS%20v61%28Sept%2910%20Suppl%20II%20Dumbacher%26WestLR.pdf Archived December 5, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Fellers, Gary M. 2014. Animal taxa named for Rollo H. Beck. Archives of Natural History 41(1): 113-123.
  5. ^ "v.1 - Oceanic birds of South America : - Biodiversity Heritage Library". Retrieved October 7, 2014.
  6. ^ Pitelka, Frank A. 1986. Rollo Beck - Old-school collector, member of an endangered species. American Birds 40(3): 385-387.