colisa lalia
Well-known member
Een van de grote namen binnen de ichthylogie is vorige week komen te overlijden.
Stanley Weitzman was voornamelijk bedreven in het wereldje van de Charicidae.
Ik vernam dit nieuws van J. R. Burns die enkele artikelen met S. Weitzman heeft geschreven.
Nu zag ik plots elders ook een post in het engels, dus die kopieer ik hier ter nagedachtenis:
Stanley H. Weitzman (1927-2017)
A giant in ichthyology and true gentlemen, Stanley H. Weitzman, passed away last week, just one month shy of his 90th birthday.
Weitzman’s interest in fishes began with a goldfish some time in third grade. His interest intensified at the home of a classmate, whose father maintained several aquaria in his garage. At this time he met his future wife and frequent collaborator, Marilyn. (Trained in botany, she typed his papers, learning to become an accomplished ichthyologist herself.)
During World War II Stan joined the Navy, spending a year at sea. While passing through the Panama Canal, he sat on the foredeck and watched small fishes jumping out of the water. They were freshwater hatchetfish, Gasteropelecus maculatus, which later became the subject of his Master’s thesis. Weitzman would eventually make the study of neotropical characiforms the mainstay of his career (although it should be noted he was an authority on deep-sea stomiiform fishes as well).
Weitzman was also an accomplished aquarist, breeding many of the small characiform fishes he was studying. In fact, he was equally at home hanging out with members of his local aquarium club (the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) as he was with fellow ichthyologists. In 2002, I had the pleasure of co-judging the PVAS fish show with Dr. Weitzman and was impressed by the time and care he took in judging all the entries.
For a 2007 Copeia article, Dr. Weitzman was asked to assess what he believed were his greatest scientific accomplishments:
• His doctoral dissertation on the osteology of Brycon meeki, which became a standard reference on the osteology of fishes in general.
• Co-authoring “Phyletic Studies of Teleostean Fishes, with a Provisional Classification of Living Forms” (1966), a seminal work in fish systematics.
• His 1974 revision of stomiiform fishes, the first large, anatomically organized cladistic paper on fishes.
• A 1983 paper (authored with William L. Fink) that completely changed the phylogeny and classification of neon tetras.
• A 1985 cladistic study (authored with Sara Fink) on glandulocaudine (now stevardiine) tetras that paved the way for numerous succeeding (and revolutionary) papers on characiform phylogeny.
All told, Dr. Weitzman has more than 300 scholarly and aquarium papers and articles to his credit. He has described or co-described 15 new genera and 90+ new species. Expect his name to be attached to several new taxa that are currently being described.
(Speaking of new species, Weitzman [and his mentor George S. Meyers] were the first to describe the Cardinal Tetra in 1956. They called it Hyphessobrycon cardinalis. However, publisher Herbert R. Axelrod rushed a concurrent description by Leonard P. Schultz into print, beating out Myers’ and Weitzman’s paper by one (!) day. That’s why the Cardinal Tetra is now called Paracheirodon axelrodi instead of P. cardinalis.)
Seven fishes have been named after Dr. Weitzman: two tetras, two crenuchids, an anablepid livebearer, a Corydoras catfish, and a marine sternopterychid called a pearlside. Shown here is the first of these seven fishes, the crenuchid Poecilocharax weitzmani of Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, described by Jacques Géry in 1965.
Poecilocharax weitzmani ( (c) Gert Blank)
(@Gertbl, moest je niet willen dat deze foto hier wordt getoond, gelieve deze dan even te laten verwijderen door het beheer)
Stanley Weitzman was voornamelijk bedreven in het wereldje van de Charicidae.
Ik vernam dit nieuws van J. R. Burns die enkele artikelen met S. Weitzman heeft geschreven.
Nu zag ik plots elders ook een post in het engels, dus die kopieer ik hier ter nagedachtenis:
Stanley H. Weitzman (1927-2017)
A giant in ichthyology and true gentlemen, Stanley H. Weitzman, passed away last week, just one month shy of his 90th birthday.
Weitzman’s interest in fishes began with a goldfish some time in third grade. His interest intensified at the home of a classmate, whose father maintained several aquaria in his garage. At this time he met his future wife and frequent collaborator, Marilyn. (Trained in botany, she typed his papers, learning to become an accomplished ichthyologist herself.)
During World War II Stan joined the Navy, spending a year at sea. While passing through the Panama Canal, he sat on the foredeck and watched small fishes jumping out of the water. They were freshwater hatchetfish, Gasteropelecus maculatus, which later became the subject of his Master’s thesis. Weitzman would eventually make the study of neotropical characiforms the mainstay of his career (although it should be noted he was an authority on deep-sea stomiiform fishes as well).
Weitzman was also an accomplished aquarist, breeding many of the small characiform fishes he was studying. In fact, he was equally at home hanging out with members of his local aquarium club (the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) as he was with fellow ichthyologists. In 2002, I had the pleasure of co-judging the PVAS fish show with Dr. Weitzman and was impressed by the time and care he took in judging all the entries.
For a 2007 Copeia article, Dr. Weitzman was asked to assess what he believed were his greatest scientific accomplishments:
• His doctoral dissertation on the osteology of Brycon meeki, which became a standard reference on the osteology of fishes in general.
• Co-authoring “Phyletic Studies of Teleostean Fishes, with a Provisional Classification of Living Forms” (1966), a seminal work in fish systematics.
• His 1974 revision of stomiiform fishes, the first large, anatomically organized cladistic paper on fishes.
• A 1983 paper (authored with William L. Fink) that completely changed the phylogeny and classification of neon tetras.
• A 1985 cladistic study (authored with Sara Fink) on glandulocaudine (now stevardiine) tetras that paved the way for numerous succeeding (and revolutionary) papers on characiform phylogeny.
All told, Dr. Weitzman has more than 300 scholarly and aquarium papers and articles to his credit. He has described or co-described 15 new genera and 90+ new species. Expect his name to be attached to several new taxa that are currently being described.
(Speaking of new species, Weitzman [and his mentor George S. Meyers] were the first to describe the Cardinal Tetra in 1956. They called it Hyphessobrycon cardinalis. However, publisher Herbert R. Axelrod rushed a concurrent description by Leonard P. Schultz into print, beating out Myers’ and Weitzman’s paper by one (!) day. That’s why the Cardinal Tetra is now called Paracheirodon axelrodi instead of P. cardinalis.)
Seven fishes have been named after Dr. Weitzman: two tetras, two crenuchids, an anablepid livebearer, a Corydoras catfish, and a marine sternopterychid called a pearlside. Shown here is the first of these seven fishes, the crenuchid Poecilocharax weitzmani of Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, described by Jacques Géry in 1965.
Poecilocharax weitzmani ( (c) Gert Blank)
(@Gertbl, moest je niet willen dat deze foto hier wordt getoond, gelieve deze dan even te laten verwijderen door het beheer)