Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Dean Amadon

Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists:
Chrono-Biographical Sketches

Amadon, Dean (1912-2003)
ornithology

Photo courtesy of The Auk.

Amadon was a leading ornithologist during the middle years of the twentieth century. After joining the staff of the American Museum of Natural History he came under the influence of Ernst Mayr, and ended up sharing a number of Mayr's interests and researches in the ecology, biogeography, and evolution of birds. Amadon was a renowned expert on birds of prey, and his Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World is no doubt his most important scientific study; another important work, however, was his doctoral program investigation of the evolution of the honeycreepers, a family of birds endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Amadon also spent time in the field in the South Pacific, Philippines, Africa, Venezuela, and Australia. Among his popular audience-oriented works was his 1966 book Birds Around the World.

Life Chronology

--born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 5 June 1912.
--1930: becomes a member of the American Ornithologists' Union (continues for 72 years!)
--1934: B.S., Hobart College
--1936-1937: wildlife technician, Connecticut State Bird, Fish and Game Department
--1937: hired by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to curate its eggs collection
--1942: drafted into U. S. Army Medical Corps
--1947: Ph.D., Cornell University
--1949: made a fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union
--1950: publishes "The Hawaiian Honeycreepers (Aves, Drepaniidae)" in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
--1955: named Lamont Curator of Birds at the AMNH
--1957-1973: chair of the ornithology department at the AMNH
--1960: honorary D.Sc., Hobart College
--1964-1966: president, American Ornithologists' Union
--1968: publishes his Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World, with L. H. Brown
--1973: publishes his Curassows and Related Birds, with Jean Delacour
--1998: receives the Eisenmann Medal from the Linnaean Society of New York
--dies at Tenafly, New Jersey, on 12 January 2003.

For Additional Information, See:

--The Auk, Vol. 120(4) (2003): 1195-1198.
--Ibis, Vol. 145(4) (2003): 716.

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