Carl H. Eigenmann | |
|---|---|
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| Born | March 9, 1863 |
| Died | April 24, 1927 (aged 64) US |
| Nationality | German/American |
| Alma mater | Indiana University Bloomington |
| Spouse | Rosa Smith Eigenmann |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | San Diego Biological Laboratory Indiana University Bloomington Carnegie Museum of Natural History |
| Doctoral students | Effa Muhse |
| Other notable students | Nathan Everett Pearson Marion Durbin Ellis John Diederich Haseman |
Carl Henry Eigenmann (March 9, 1863 – April 24, 1927) was a German-American ichthyologist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who, along with his wife Rosa Smith Eigenmann, and his zoology students is credited with identifying and describing for the first time 195 genera containing nearly 600 species of fishes of North America and South America. Especially notable among his published papers are his studies of the freshwater fishes of South America, the evolution and systematics of South American fishes, and for his analysis of degenerative evolution based on his studies of blind cave fishes found in parts of North America and in Cuba. His most notable works are The American Characidae (1917–1929) and A revision of the South American Nematognathi or cat-fishes (1890), in addition to numerous published papers such as "Cave Vertebrates of North America, a study of degenerative evolution" (1909) and "The fresh-water fishes of Patagonia and an examination of the Archiplata-Archelenis theory" (1909).
Eigenmann was an alumnus of Indiana University, an instructor/professor in IU's department of zoology, and an administrator at IU's Bloomington, Indiana, campus for more than forty years. He was also the first dean of the IU graduate school from 1908 to 1927. In addition to his duties at IU, Eigenman was honorary curator of fishes at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to 1918. Eigenmann was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1923. He was also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member and past president of the Indiana Academy of Science, an honorary member of the California Academy of Sciences and of the Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales of Bogotá, Colombia, as well as a member of other scientific organizations, including Sigma XI, a science honorary, and Phi Beta Kappa.