Citizen scientists, game wardens, researchers plus their students and even a few bonafide professional collectors explored western Canada plus other parts of this vast continent, some journeying around the globe. What unites them all is their trust in the Cowan Tetrapod Collection to house, in perpetuity, their biodiversity legacy. Only a few have been honoured so far. If you are interested in contributing to this archival project please contact us.
Click the contributor’s name below to learn more about each of these intrepid citizen scientists and researchers!
* Please note this webpage is under construction. Please check back soon!
Ian McTaggart Cowan with Kenneth Racey canoeing at Chezacut Lake in British Columbia. (1931)
Kenneth Racey bringing down a porcupine at Mount Whistler. (1927)
Ian McTaggart Cowan pushing the train-car on Whitesail/Eutsuk portage (Jim Van Tine Portage) during his and Joyce’s honeymoon. (1936)
Ian McTaggart Cowan and Bristol Foster at Rose Spit, Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). (1960) – Bristol Foster was a grad student and contributed specimens to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection. Bristol and artist Robert Bateman did a famous drive across Africa in 1961 in a Land Rover.
Ian McTaggart Cowan, Frank Bryant, Syd Williams, and Kathleen Bryant in front of a cabin at Snaring River, Jasper. (1930)
Ian McTaggart Cowan with V. Udvardi and cameraman Robert Reid filming for his television series The Living Sea, a precursor to the Nature of Things. Photo by UBC Dept. of Extension Services.
Ian McTaggart Cowan (back row, right) with classmates at the University of British Columbia. (1931)
Ian McTaggart Cowan and Joyce McTaggart Cowan with Provincial Museum truck. (1937) – Ian married Kenneth Racey’s daughter, Joyce.
Images have been made available for research and study by UVic Special Collections and University Archives. For other uses, please contact UVic Special Collections and University Archives (250) 721-8257.
Contributor Snapshot
Professional avian collector and preparator, the life of Abidul Rasool is a bit of a mystery except for for the years of 1950 and 1951. During this period, Rasool and Wilfred J. Plowden-Wardlaw were under contract to the Yale Peabody Museum to collect and prepare avian skins from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Dominic. The Peabody Museum Rasool Collection of ~813 birds is referred to in numerous journal articles about the avian fauna of Trinidad and Tobago.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
It is safe to conjecture that the Cowan Tetrapod Collection acquired its Rasool specimens via his expedition mate, Plowden-Wardlaw, a BC resident. Often prepartors trade skins with each other for inclusion in their personal collections. Plowden-Wardlaw is one of the major contributors to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection avian collection. The majority of these 33 Rasool Trinidadian avian study skins are tanagers and all of them are passerines. The 3 Rasool study skins from what was then British Guiana (Guyana) are all Charadriiforms (2 shorebirds and a tern). As per VertNet, the Peabody and the Beaty are the only two museums that house A. Rasool 1950’s avian specimens.
B005478: Over 2/3 of the 33 Rasool birds from Trinidad and Tobago are tanagers as is this male Purple Honeycreeper. Despite its name, this bird has magnificent blue plumage.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Alan Best, 1910-2001. Curator of the Stanley Park Zoo.
Contributor Snapshot
Alan Best was Curator of Stanley Park Zoo for over 20 years. Previously, Best worked for Julian Huxley and was appointed Assistant Zoo Curator of the Regent’s Park Zoo, London, when Huxley was appointed the Curator. In his early years, Best studied art in Paris and as a professional sculptor designed figurines for Wedgewood. After serving in WWII, he made a living as a professional zoo animal collector for a few years prior to returning to his boyhood home on Saltspring Island.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
B009582: On display in the large avian display cabinet, this Emperor Penguin which formerly lived at the Stanley Park Zoo is often mentioned by BBM visitors as one of their very favourite specimens.
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has an excellent penguin collection due to Alan Best’s keen interest in these bird and his international recognized expertise of the care and breeding of this taxa. Best made several expeditions to the Antarctic to capture different penguin species for the Stanley Park Zoo much to the delight of zoo visitors. Birds that died often found a new home at the Cowan Tetrapod Collection. One such bird is the taxidermied Emperor Penguin on display at the BBM. The number of birds directly attributed to Best in our collection is small but they greatly contributed to the biodiversity of the collection (King Penguin egg, Peruvian Meadowlark and an Australian Black Swan). The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has many avian and mammal specimens from the Stanley Park Zoo which either have no collector listed or the preparator’s name is listed. This include numerous monkeys and kangaroos, a Red Panda, an Asian Elephant, a flamingo, toucans and off course many of our penguins. The friendship between members of the Stanley Park Zoo staff and what was then the UBC Vertebrate Museum created a wonderful legacy which greatly expands the biodiversity of our collection for everyone to enjoy.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Kovacs A., 1903-1999. Taxidermist, professional museum specimen collector and natural history guide from ~1950 to ~1983. This image of Andor Kovacs appears as part of the dedication to their father (or grandfather) of the authors of The Illustrated Handbook of the Birds of Patagonia.
Contributor Snapshot
In the 1950s, Andor Kovacs with his wife Yolan Molnar de Kovacs, their six sons and one daughter relocated to El Bolsón, Province of Rio Negro, Argentina. Four of the sons shared their father’s keen interest in biology. For decades, this family of taxidermists and natural history guides helped created global awareness of the tetrapod biodiversity of Patagonia. Kovacs received commissions and shipped prepared mammal, bird, and amphibian research specimens around the world. The earliest A. Kovacs specimen currently listed on VertNet (a multi-museum search engine) is an American Kestrel collected in March 1950 with the last specimen listed being a Chilean Four-eyed Frog collected in November 1983.
Major collections of Patagonian specimens prepared by Andor Kovacs are housed in Europe at the Naturalis (Netherlands), Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de la Ville de Gèneve (Switzerland), and Uppsala Universitet Evolutionsmuseet (Sweden). In North America, the largest collection of A. Kovacs specimens is at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County having ~1,850 birds and mammal skins. Here in Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum has a collection of 366 Patagonian birds prepared by this master taxidermist, Andor Kovacs.
In 2005, three of Andor Kovacs’s sons plus one grand-son published Spanish and English editions of Illustrated Handbook of the Birds of Patagonia. This publication was a multi-generational project. The backrooms of the private family museum, Museos Ornitologico Patagonica, house an impressive reference collection of over 240 species of Patagonian avian round skins prepared by different family members plus have exceptional taxidermy displays on exhibit. The authors used this bird collection plus the bird lore amassed by this remarkable family to write and illustrated this massive book.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The two Andor Kovac bird specimens housed at the Cowan Tetrapod Collection expand the biodiversity of our holdings.
B012848, an Aplomado Falcon completes our collection of the six falcons that breed within the ABA Area (American Birding Association area is defined as the 49 continental United States, Hawaii, Canada and the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon plus adjacent waters). Correspondence has been lost but most probably a former curator of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection contacted the Los Angeles Museum (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) and arranged a specimen trade. Leg tags are never removed from specimens. On the reverse side of the Los Angeles Museum tag (near the colour corrector card in this image) is scribed: El Bolstón, Rio Negro, Argentina: June 3, 1961; Andor Kovacs.
The colouration of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection other Kovacs skin is most un-Cotinga-like. The Cotinga passerine bird family is known for its outrages iridescent blue and purple plumages. To North American birders, this Rufous-tailed Plantcutter (B012847) with its formidable finch-like beak might bring to mind a zany variation of our local Grosbeaks species.
Researched and written by: Ildiko Szabo
Contributor Snapshot
First (BC) Provincial Game and Forest Warden . The BC Department for the Protection of Game and Forests was created on 1st July 1905. Both as BC’s first Provincial Game and Forest Warden and as head of this newly created government department, A. Bryan Williams helped shape what is today’s BC Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The oldest mammal sourced from the Thompson-Nicola region housed at the BBM was collected by Williams in 1908. This Mule Deer skull from Lillooet is the first of many tetrapod specimens donated to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection by BC Game Wardens. Today this tradition lives on. Annually BC Conservation Officers plus many other BC Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Strategies staff donate a wide variety of common, unusual and occasionally blue listed birds, mammals, and reptiles frozen cadavers that are turned into government offices.
This image is page 2 of a BC Conservation Officer Service report: The Beginning 1905-1918. Click this link to read all 7 pages.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Dr. Derek Nurse, 1939- . Henrietta Harvey Research Professor, Memorial University; currently Professor Emeritus, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr. Nurse handing over his Eastern Black Rhinoceros skull to Ildiko Szabo, Cowan Tetrapod Collection Collections Curator. Photograph taken by Margaret Nurse outside their home in Victoria.
Contributor Snapshot
Author of ten books, scores of journal articles, Dr. Derek Nurse was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for his groundbreaking work in linguistics. His specialty is the historical and modern development of the Swahili and the Bantu Languages. Nurse did his undergrad in Manchester, UK, his Masters at Berkeley, CA and his PhD in Dar es Salaam, TZ. Both for graduate work and for subsequent research, Nurse has travelled extensively in East Africa.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Nurse spent 8 years in Tanzania. One day while driving near Arusha National Park, he spied this rain-drenched sun-bleached Eastern Black Rhinoceros skull by the side of the road and decided to rescue. After returning to Canada, this skull had a place of pride in his living room and sparked many a conversation. For a time, it provided hands-on experience to Memorial University biology students. In 2021, Nurse decided to donate it to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection to make the whereabouts of this skull known to the greater research community via VertNet. In 2020, the estimated Eastern Black Rhinoceroses population in Tanzania was ~80 individuals none of which reside in or near Arusha National Park. This skull, M019610 is representative of a now-extinct population.
The sex of M019610 Diceros bicornis michaeli is unknowable based on morphology alone. Looking at the teeth, (wear and how many) tells us that this young rhino with its impressive 52.5 cm long skull was 3.5 – 4 years old. This youngster had two horns but note that the skull is devoid of bony protrusions. Rhino horns are more like out of control dreadlocks than calcified bone and dentine Their horns are entirely composed of keratin as is human hair.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Dr. Donald E. McAllister, 1934-2001. First Curator of Fishes at the Canadian Museum of Nature (photograph courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature).
Contributor Snapshot
Born in Victoria, Don McAllister did three degrees at UBC finishing his PhD in 1964: The evolution of branchiostegal rays in teleostome fishes. At what is now the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN), McAllister was hired as the first Curator of Fishes, a post he filled from 1958-1986. Under his watch, this national collection grew from ~4,638 specimens to over 410,000 specimens. From 1986 until he retired from the CMN in 1993, McAllister devoting his time to environmental issues. In 1950, he married a fellow UBC doctoral student, Nancy Mahoney.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The UBC Fish Collection has 9 specimens collected by Don McAllister. Ever interested in aquatic vertebrates, Don donated 3 frogs, 3 toads, and 1 snake to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection. He also donated a North American Deermouse.
M006855 & M006858: Neither Nancy or Don McAllister studied rodents but this did not deter them from donating specimens unrelated to their study species (grebes and fish). They each collected one of these North American Deermouse on Saturna Island on March 16, 1956.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Edwin Earl Sechrist, 1890-1964
Contributor Snapshot
Sechrist was an amateur naturalist who collected eggs principally in Southern California plus many of the pacific islands of the coast of Mexico. He was active in the Cooper Ornithological Society throughout his lifetime and his egg collections have been deposited in many museums including the Yale Peabody Museum, the Chicago Academy of Science and the San Bernardino County Museum.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has 7 egg clutches collected in California by Sechrist. The oldest is the Hooded Oriole clutch collect on May 9, 1911.
Researched and written by: Ildiko Szabo
B0020146: Farallon Cormorant is a name rarely used nowadays for the Double-crested Cormorant subspecies Phalacrocorax auritus albociliatus (Ridgway 1884). This is the resident subspecies we see in British Columbia. They are named after the Farallon Islands, a small group of craggy islands and sea stacks off the coast of San Francisco, California. These hazardous cliffs are perfect for nesting cormorants and are sometimes referred to as the Devil’s Teeth Islands. On May 12, 1912, Sechrist collected these three Farallon Cormorant eggs halfway up a seaside slope on Coranoda Island, Mexico; a much more hospitable place.
Dr. Francis Hollis (Bud) Fay, 1927-1994. Simultaneously a Researcher at the Institute of Marine Science and a Researcher at the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; member of the steering-planning committee, Marine Mammal Project, US-USSR Agreement on Environmental Projection.
This photo was taken in June 1979 by Dr. Brendan P. Kelly on Punuk, Island in the northern Bering Sea while investigating a mass walrus mortality.
Contributor Snapshot
Author of numerous scientific papers and books, Francis (Bud) Fay is best known for his 1982 monograph: Ecology and biology of the Pacific Walrus, Odobenus rosmarus divergens. Fay’s editing skills and thoroughness were legendary. In order to read all the literature available on Pacific Walruses, he and his wife learned Russian. As a team, they translated over 120 scientific articles into English. His Arctic publications were not restricted to walruses, Fay also published on Arctic foxes, small mammals and birds.
Fay relied heavily on local knowledge and especially on the Siberian Yupik guides who helped him and with whom he lived. Many of his publications include folklore and local knowledge. The existence of rogue carnivorous walruses who hunt, kill and consume seals and whales is the stuff of legends. Fay investigated these stories and the occurrence of these rare beasts from the Bering Sea to the waters around Greenland. He proved scientifically that they do in fact exist. Fay’s findings suggest that orphaned calves lacking a mother to teach them how to extract mollusks and other invertebrates from the ocean floor are more likely to hunt seals.
At the end of his PhD fieldwork on St. Lawrence Island, Fay donated his beloved coat, a Yupik parka to the UBC Museum of Anthropology (A2.486) which he had worn for 4 years. The brown ovals in this parka are belly skins of Double-breasted Cormorants, a species commonly seen around Vancouver.
Two obituaries have been published about this remarkable man: Link 1 Link 2
Photographer unknown. Image taken circa 1960 off of Round Island.
Dr. Fay is the one closest to the camera.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
In 1955, Francis H. Fay completed his PhD thesis: The Pacific Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens): special ecology, life history, and population. Previously, he had earned his Masters at the University of Massachusetts for his work on the ecology of Cottontail Rabbits. Having become enamoured by American Pikas while working as an Oregon fire lookout, he headed to UBC to do graduate work on the species. His thesis advisor, Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan, had other ideas. Shortly after arriving in Vancouver, Fay was shipped out on a military vessel to study the walruses of St. Lawrence Island, an Alaskan Island in the Bering Sea closer to Russia than the USA.
The following year (1953), he returned to St. Lawrence Island for seven months to collect specimens and data on walruses, terrestrial mammals, and birds with Barbara A. Fay whom he had recently married.
The Fays contributed widely to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum: 22 fish, 90 plants, 71 birds and 65 mammals. The BBM is much indebted to this couple for being the first, or one of the first, contributors of specimens from the Bering Sea to so many of our museum collections. Fay also contributed birds and mammals to other museums. The USNM (Smithsonian) has 16 specimens, the University of Alaska has ~39, Los Angeles County Museum has one, and there are probably many other Fay specimens lurking in other tetrapod and herbarium collections.
Fay personally contributed 62 mammal specimens with the majority being Pacific Walrus skulls in addition to Bearded, Ringed, and Ribbon Seals, a Steller Sea Lion, Arctic Foxes, and Tundra Voles.
Photo credit: Ildiko Szabo
Chris Stinson, BBM Mammalian Specialist holding the skull of a suspected carnivorous Pacific Walrus (M004273). Typically, walrus tusks are subject to abrasion and damage incurred while digging for food in muddy substrates. Since they do not use this feeding behaviour, the tusks of seal hunting walruses are longer than those found on an individual of a similar age and sex. Consuming seal and whale blubber stains their ivory tusks a yellowish hue. Local knowledge has known for millennia that the liver of these rogue beasts is toxic, as is the liver of Polar Bears. Their toxicity is due to elevated levels of vitamin-A obtained from consuming so much seal fat. Read more about carnivorous walruses here.
Photo credit: Tim Bonham, Copyright UBC MOA.
Photo credit: Tim Bonham, Copyright UBC MOA.
Cultural object A2.486 housed at UBC Museum of Anthropology is the Siberian Yupik parka worn by Francis H. Fay while conducting his PhD fieldwork. The outer layer has a minimum of 20 Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) belly skins with a wolverine ruff around the hood and the bottom of the parka. More information on MOA A2.486 is available here.
At left, Ildiko Szabo BBM bird specialist discusses with Susan Rowley, MOA Arctic Curator the fabrication of the Siberian Yupik parka (MOA A2.486) donated by Francis (Bud) Fay. Observing are BBM avian Work-Learn students Finola Fogarty and Quinn McCallum.
Photo credits: Kaitlin Chamberlain
As per the MOA records for A2.486 parka, bird skins were used on St. Lawrence Island for clothing because of the absence of caribou. The feathers on the hood point up enabling the wearer to flick out the snow more easily. Wolverine is used for the ruff around the hood so the frost caused by breathing can be brushed off more easily because the hair is long and uneven. While mass-produced clothing from the south is now commonly worn, the making of skin clothing is being revived in the Arctic. Read more!
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Contributor Snapshot
For his groundbreaking research on island populations, Frank S. Tompa was awarded a UBC PhD and a diploma from the University of Science, Szeged, Hungary. In 1960, Tompa initiated the now-famous Mandarte Island Song Sparrow study. Recently the Mandarte study of individually marked sparrows celebrated its 60th anniversary. Mandarte Sparrows have been extensively studied by UBC students and professors. The list of researchers that have participated in this project reads like a celebrity column and includes Peter and Rosemary Grant whom later replicated many aspects of the Mandarte Island study on Daphne Major Island (Ecuador) with Galapagos finches.
Later in Victoria, Tompa worked for many years in Carnivore Management for the BC Ministry of the Environment.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
There are 25 Tompa avian skins in the collection. The 6 Mandarte Island skins are shorebirds (5 Black Turnstones and a Surfbird). Tompa was a master preparator. Two of his skins (a Black Turnstone from Mandarte Island and a Townsend’s Solitaire from Loon Lake) were included in a set of 13 birds specimens traded with the Naturhistoriches Museum, Vienna.
Today, UBC Arcese Lab members are still conducting sparrow research on Mandarte Island. This photograph was taken by a member of the lab in 1964 (Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library).
Title: The Canadian field-naturalist Identifier: canadianfieldnat1964otta (find matches) Year: 1964 (1960s) Authors: Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club – Wikimedia Commons
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Dr. Gertrude May Smith, 1902-1986. UBC BA Biology 1923; UBC MA Biology 1926, UCal Berkeley PhD 1934. (Photo credit: 1926 Graduation image from UBC archives library.ubc.ca/archives/first100
Contributor Snapshot
As the first woman to join UBC’s Faculty of Science when she was hired as an Assistant Professor in 1930, Dr. Gertrude May Smith was a trailblazer. Her association with UBC spanned the 1920s and 1930s. She completed a BA in Biology in 1923 and then worked as a Lab Instructor, 1924-26, while she studied toward her MA. As a master’s student, Smith observed and collected specimens of the salamander, Rough-skinned Newt, from Beaver Lake in Stanley Park, the UBC Endowment Lands wetlands, and a pond that no longer exists near 16th Avenue and Arbutus Street.
Photo credit: DSHil, Rough-skinned Newt taken in Josephine County, Oregon.
Smith opened her masters thesis, “The Detailed Anatomy of Triturus Torosus” (available on UBC CiRCLE), with the following explanation and synthesis:
This investigation was undertaken, on the advice of Dr. Fraser [Smith’s supervisor], because of its interest from an evolutionary standpoint. As the investigation has shown, this form [Rough-skinned Newt] is much more nearly in the direct line of descent of higher vertebrates than is the frog, which, in comparison, is very highly specialized.
On graduation in 1926, the Department of Biology hired Smith as an Instructor, a position that she held until she set off for the University of California (Berkeley) in 1928 to pursue a Ph.D., a degree that UBC did not offer at the time. As a doctoral student, Smith continued her work on salamanders and completed a dissertation on “The Nasal Region and Organ of Jacobson in Some American Salamanders” in 1934. While at Berkeley, Smith was invited to join two honorary American scientific societies: Phi Sigma (biological) and Sigma Xi (general science). She also taught courses in Zoology as a Teaching Fellow.
Gertrude M. Smith, circa 1933, in a labcoat inspecting specimens with students in the UBC Zoology Department.
In 1930, before she had completed her Ph.D., UBC’s Faculty of Science hired Smith as an Assistant Professor and its first female faculty member. At UBC, Smith continued her work on salamanders, including a study of the decimation of Rough-skinned newts (1939-40) as they migrated through Stanley Park to Beaver Lake across the new road to the Lions Gate Bridge (now the “Stanley Park Causeway”). Her publications include studies of: four different species of clams, the interactions of phytoplankton and clams, the distribution of decapod crustations in Saanich Inlet, a detailed anatomy of one salamander species, and the comparative anatomy of the nasal region of six salamander species. In this last study, her Ph.D. dissertation, Smith drew connections between the structure of the nasal apparatus of the species and its habitat (aquatic, partly-aquatic/partly-terrestrial, or terrestrial).
While an Assistant Professor (1930-1940), Smith taught Zoology 1 (General Morphology), Zoology 2 (Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates), Zoology 3, (Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrates), and Zoology 6 (Embryology).
Dr. Gertrude M. Smith, seated, with students in her 1931 lab. The models and jars suggest this was a comparative morphology lab. The student in the back row on the right is Ian McTaggart Cowan. Like Dr. Smith, he would go on to Berkley to obtain a PhD and return to UBC to teach. Dr. Cowan is the founder of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection.
In 1985, Smith (then Gertrude Watney) offered the following recollections of her experience as a woman on faculty:
. . . there were very few women, in any field, on the faculty, and none in science, as I remember. There were several laboratory instructors and junior assistants, but no professors. However, I was not aware of doing anything unusual at that time. My colleagues in the Arts departments worked, as I did, together with the men on the faculty without any suggestion that we were out of place. We were not as conscious of “women’s rights” and “women’s lib” as many of women are today, and I think that, in some ways, we were happier for it, and perhaps accomplished as much.
(Quote source: library.ubc.ca)
The UBC Zoology departmental history describes Smith as one of “The Pioneers”.
UBC Department of Zoology History, zoology.ubc.ca/about/department-history
However, Smith’s time at UBC ended abruptly and without explanation. When the Zoology Department Head, McLean Fraser, retired in 1939, the Zoology Department and the Faculty of Science did not renew Smith’s contract as Assistant Professor. She only discovered that her position had been terminated when she went to the bursar’s office to collect her monthly pay cheque and there wasn’t one. Nobody ever told her why her appointment had not been renewed (MJ Harris, pers. comm.).
Later in life, Smith speculated about the reasons why her contract was not renewed. She had married Reverend Douglas P. Watney, Professor of Theology in the Anglican Theological College at UBC, in 1937 and it was not uncommon for married women to lose their jobs to preserve them for men during the Great Depression. It may have been that the Department of Zoology was changing its focus, shifting towards a study of ecology instead of comparative anatomy; the same year her appointment was not renewed, the Zoology Department hired an ecologist, Ian McTaggart Cowan. It may have been that Smith had not yet published the material in her PhD dissertation. In 1938, the editor of the Journal of Morphology returned her manuscript, saying that with so many illustrations (approximately 60) it was too expensive for that journal (or likely any other Wistar journal) to publish. Whatever the reason, Smith was never told, and the protections of tenure did not yet exist (MJ Harris, pers.comm.).
Although Smith would not hold another academic position, she never lost her fascination with the natural world. Through her continuing curiosity and enthusiasm, she inspired her daughter, Muriel J. Harris (nee Watney), to pursue a career in zoology. Harris joined UBC’s Department of Medical Genetics as a Research Associate in 1978 and retired as an Associate Professor Emerita in 2006. One of Smith’s grandsons, Colin Harris, completed a PhD at UBC in Biochemistry in 1998 and another, Douglas Harris, is currently a Professor in UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, extending the family’s connection with UBC faculty to a third generation.
Additional material on Gertrude Watney (nee Smith), including her UBC Zoology lecture and laboratory notes, is available in UBC Archives. A published obituary appears in a 1986 UBC Faculty Women’s Association newsletter.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Gertrude M. Smith contributed 107 specimens between 1929 and 1931 from the lower mainland of BC and Alameda County, California, that are now part of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection. Eighty-six of them are of the subject of her master’s thesis, the Rough-skinned Newt.
Smith used a manual typewriter for all her academic writing. If she made a typo or wanted to add information or change the wording, the entire page had to be retyped. Also, she had no digital tools to produce her elegant and detailed diagrams. The images below, from Smith’s Master’s thesis, are her drawings of a Rough-skinned Newt’s heart and its associated major veins and arteries (Plate V), and of the arteries in its legs (Figures 17 and 18).
Smith, “The Detailed Anatomy of Triturus Torosus,” UBC Master’s thesis, page 68.
Smith, “The Detailed Anatomy of Triturus Torosus,” UBC Master’s thesis, page 72.
Smith also collected and donated California Slender Salamanders, Arboreal Salamanders, Pacific Tree Frogs, and Columbia Spotted frog specimens. These fluid specimens were likely part of the foundational collection when the UBC Vertebrate Museum (now called the Cowan Tetrapod Collection or CTC) opened in 1943.
Specimen H000437 is one of a pair of Columbia Spotted Frogs collected in 1926 by Gertrude M. Smith from near New Denver, BC, where she was born and lived until she came to UBC in 1919. The CTC has just under 50 specimens of this frog; Smith’s specimens are the oldest. (Photo Credit: Nola Moray)
Specimen H000437 is one of a pair of Columbia Spotted Frogs collected in 1926 by Gertrude M. Smith from near New Denver, BC, where she was born and lived until she came to UBC in 1919. The CTC has just under 50 specimens of this frog; Smith’s specimens are the oldest. (Photo Credit: Nola Moray)
Contribution to the Marine Invertebrate Collection
Gertrude M. Smith donated her UBC invertebrate teaching collection. This small collection includes fossil specimens, sea biscuits (sand-dollar shaped echinoderms) and several other taxa.
Before joining the UBC Department of Zoology, Smith worked at the Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, BC, documenting her work with several publications. Her 1933 paper published by the Royal Society of Canada is called Further observations on the ecology, rate of growth and food supply of some Pacific clams. The clam that Smith donated is not a commercially important species. Catalogue #S009448 specimen is a Northwest Ugly Clam or Rock Entodesma. She collected this clam in July, 1927 near Sidney, BC. Many clam specimens are dried shells. Smith elected to preserve this clam in fluid which preserves its internal organs.
The Northwest Ugly Clam has had several taxonomic names. The one in brackets on the white label, Lyonsia saxicola, is an older name for Entodesma saxicola; since then it has changed to Entodesma navicula.
L: The outside of the clam shell is oddly shaped, with a rough, thick brown protective layer. Note the white coiled calcareous tube of a worm that made itself at home on the shell surface.
R: Inside, the shiny pearl-like shell contrasts sharply with the dark body tissue. Note the cluster of byssal threads near the clam’s foot that are used to attach itself to a rock.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo, Muriel Harris (daughter of G. M. Smith), Douglas Harris (grandson of G.M. Smith), and Sheila C. Byers.
H. A. Hochbaum, 1911-1988. Founding Director, Delta Waterfowl Foundation, Manitoba.
Contributor Snapshot
H. Albert (Al) Hochbaum excelled as an artist, a writer, and an ornithologist. The most famous of the three book he authored and illustrated is: The Canvasback on a Prairie Marsh. It won a Wildlife Society Award, one of many writing awards Hochbaum received. His writing is described as poetic observation of ecological landscapes. Hochbaum, a student of Aldo Leopold, was the Founding Director of what is now the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, Manitoba. He held this post for 32 years. For part of this time, he was also an Honorary Professor at the University of Manitoba.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Hochbaum prepared and shipped 4 ducklings (Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, Pintail, and Blue-winged Teal) to the CTC while he was the Director of the Delta Waterfowl Research Station, Manitoba.
B002464: Hochbaum prepared this 5 day old captive reared Gadwall duckling. It died on July 7, 1938 near Delta, Manitoba.
Researched and written by Ailsa McFadyen-Mungall
Dr. Jean H. Bedard, 1938-2019. Founder of DuvetNor, Quebec.
Contributor Snapshot
Originally from the Rivière-du-Loup area, Jean H. Bédard returned to Quebec after finishing graduate work at UBC. With funding from the University of Laval and other sources, he conducted St. Laurence River waterfowl research. Bédard has over 30 publications to his credit plus in 1972 he released a CD: Guide Sonore des Oiseaux du Québec. Bédard is best known as the founder of Duvetnor. In 1979 in order to protect eider duck nests from relentless harvesting, Bédard and some biologist friends obtained eiderdown collection rights to several private and public St. Lawrence Islands. Using the profits, their NGO Duvetnor started purchasing these seabird breeding islands. Today the society owns 9 islands in the upper St. Lawrence Estuary. As well as ongoing ecological research, Duvetnor is known for its ecotourism and educational programs. On Pot á l’Eau-de-Vie Island, Duvetnor converted the abandoned lighthouse into a spectacular 3 room inn plus a visitors centre. Check out this interview with Bédard titled: “A Rare Bird“.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Ecological Segregation among plankton-feeding Alcidae (Aethia and Cyclorrhynchus) is the title of Jean H. Bédard’s 1967 PhD dissertation. All 47 skins deposited at the CTC by Bédard are from Alaska (St Lawrence Island or the Nome Census Area). 28 skins and 2 skeletons are alcids, his study species: Crested Auklet, Parakeet Auklet and Least Auklet.
B011868: The flip side of this King Eider’s label states it was collected on June 17th, 1964 near Gambell, Alaska by J. Bedard.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
2019 official portrait of Jessica Meir in the type of spacesuit she wore for her spacewalks during the International Space Station Expedition 61 mission. (Image courtesy of NASA)
Jessica Ulrika Meir (1977- ): Ph.D. (2009), UBC Post Doctoral Fellow (2009-2012) comparative physiologist, former Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, NASA Astronaut.
Contributor Snapshot
Jessica U. Meir credits her love of space to a curiosity of the natural world instilled in her from her mother, and the spirit of exploration fueled by watching TV broadcasts of NASA Space Shuttle missions as a child. Attending a youth space camp at Purdue University at the age of 13 deepened her interest. Meir’s dream of going to space became a reality in 2019 when she was the Flight Engineer for 205 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). While aboard ISS, Meir conducted hundreds of scientific experiments. She was fortunate to participate in three spacewalks including the historic October 18, 2019 first all-female spacewalk with Christina Koch. As Meir was selected in 2020 as one of 18 astronauts for the Artemis Program, she could make history a 2nd time by walking on the Moon.
What is of interest in this snapshot is Meir’s research on how animals obtain sufficient oxygen to support high performance under extreme, oxygen limiting conditions first at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD) and then later at the University of British Columbia. For her Ph.D. (Scripps, 2009) Meir conducted research on the deep-diving physiology of Emperor Penguins at the Penguin Ranch, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica and on Northern Elephant Seals in California. At UBC, Meir moved from the depths to the heights studying the oxygen adaptations Bar-headed Geese use when they migrate from sea level over the Himalayas to the Mongolian Plateau. This species of goose have been tracked flying as high as 7,270 meters above sea level.
The following links detail some of the research projects Meir participated in en route to becoming an astronaut:
- Meir’s Elephant Seal diving physiology research.
- This paper published about her UBC windtunel experiments contains a film clip of Goose 32 flying inside the windtunnel.
For her goose studies, Meir had to imprint newly hatched goslings. Waterfoul species like geese have a strong imprinting instinct, latching on the first thing they see upon hatching as their mother. Meir held 12 Bar-headed Goose eggs as they hatched, and spent the following months fostering the imprinting instinct and habituating the goslings to the environment used for metabolic studies in UBC’s mechanical engineering Aerolab windtunnel. This included flight familiarization, having them chase her while riding a bicycle and soon after a motorized scooter.
At UBC, Meir’s Post doctoral research was noticed. In the period while she awaited the wind tunnel to become operational, an unsuspecting runner or motorist was likely to encounter Meir out on her scooter exercising one or more of her Bar-headed Geese around campus in the wee hours of the morning. After imprinting herself as the mother of 12 goslings, Meir had to ensure their flight muscles developed properly. This NASA video has footage of Meir’s oxygen transport cascade research on penguins, seals plus her beloved Bar-headed Geese.
Bar-headed Goose migrate from India across the Himalayas to the Mongolian plateau to nest and raise their young. Post nesting, there is a period when the geese shed their flight feathers and are earthbound until the new feathers regrow. Meir and other members of the Milsom lab used kayaks to herd Bar-headed Geese into an on-shore corral. Once the geese were penned, measurements where taken of select individuals and data-loggers implanted to enable the collection of heart rate, body temperature, wing beat frequency, ambient temperature and elevation data.
The Milsom lab using kayaks to herding geese into a corral on the shores of Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake, Mongolian. (Image taken by Bruce Moffat)
As per Dr. William K. Milsom, Meir’s Post Doctoral Supervisor:
“Jessica joined the lab bringing expertise and motivation at the perfect time as our studies were shifting emphasis from studies of geese at rest to studies of geese during strenuous exercise, all at simulated or real altitude.
Meir collected heart rate, body temperature and flight performance (wing beat frequency) data in Mongolia and metabolic rate data back on campus in the windtunnel, this time on flying birds. It was Meir’s research that revealed how the geese manage to fly in thin air.”
In Mongolia, Jessica made cardiorespiratory and metabolic measurements on birds exercising on a treadmill as well as assisted in instrumenting birds for data-logging during their annual migrations over the Himalayas.
According to Milsom, “our collaboration and friendship over the years has given rise to a great many stories. One of my favourites is:
While I was visiting with my good friend and colleague, Peter Frappel in Hobart Tasmania, Jessica called us from space as the International Space Station was passing overhead. Her final and most memorable remark was “I’ll see you next time I’m on earth!”
Dr. Jessica Meir with her post-doctoral Supervisor, Dr. William K. Milsom at the American Physiology Summit April 2024. (Photo credit: Angelina Fong)
Links:
Meir urging two of her Bar-headed Geese to fly in UBC’s mechanical engineering Aerolab windtunnel. (photo credit: Derek Tan)
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
In February 2025, the Beaty Biodiversity Museum unveiled a new shadowbox exhibit featuring feathers that travelled to the International Space Station with Jessica Meir: “I took these feathers to space with me to represent a pivotal chapter of my life (both professionally and personally) as a post-doc at UBC, and as an aid to facilitate scientific education and outreach. I also felt that it was symbolic to bring a piece of this iconic high-altitude species, the bar-headed goose, to an even greater height. (Jessica Meir, October 2024)”
Astronaut Jessica Meir took this image of her Bar-headed Goose feathers while orbiting the earth on the International Space Station.
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has very few specimens from this ground-breaking Bar-headed Goose research. These Bar-headed Geese lived far from home and are officially classified as domestics. The UBC Bar-Headed Goose flock doubled in size the following year (2012) when Julia York, another member of the Milsom lab, imprinted a 2nd clutch of Bar-headed Goslings. When all the windtunnel flying and other physiological tests were over, the geese were distributed to local farmers and aviarists who were interested in keeping exotic geese as pets. Only if a goose died was it archived at the CTC.
The CTC avian database list five Bar-headed Goose specimens but we believe this represents less than 5 individuals. Several of the goose parts have been separated from each other. Is the wing that was prepared to show the bone spur the same individual as a CTC skeleton that is missing one set of wing bones? Another lone wing resides in a drawer on Aisle 18 of the BBM. Next to it is a map illustrating the long distance migrations of these amazing flyers from the Mongolian Plateau to Sri Lanka.
Specimen B023830 is a Bar-headed Goose wing stripped of all its small feathers to reveal how flight feathers are cemented or imbedded into wing bones. A bone spur located at the base of the ulna is circled in red. Spur-winged geese (Plectropterus gambensis) and Screamers (Anhima cornuta and Chauna sp.) have claw-like wing spurs that projects beyond their wing feathers. These duck relatives use their dangeriously sharp spurs in territorial and mating disputes. This bone remnant in Bar-headed Geese wings most likely indicates that once they or one of their ancestors had wings equipped for fighting! (photo credit: Ildiko Szabo)
Written and researched by Ildiko Szabo and Bill Milson.
Joyce (Lanko) Elliott, 1938 – 2001. UBC graduate student. Lecturer at UBC’s Department of Zoology 1963-64. Businesswoman. Elliott was still a student when a Vancouver Sun photographer took this image during a 1959 UBC Open House.
Contributor Snapshot
Born in 1938, Joyce Laurian Lanko picked up an interest in science at an early age while exploring her hometown of Winnipeg. For university, she elected to venture west and attend UBC. First, she did a Bachelor’s and then went on to complete a Masters Degree. Both Lanko and her future husband Arthur Kevin Elliott were graduate students of the founder of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan.
After teaching for a year (Lecturer in Zoology 1963-64), Lanko enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Monash University (Melbourne) to study the biogeographical connections between Australian and South American marsupials by looking at hair scales morphology. But, having met her husband and subsequently starting a family, Joyce Lanko (now Joyce Elliott) was unable to complete her studies. A common occurrence in the 1960’s when graduate studies were deemed incompatible for married women and especially for women with small children. This resulted in many women in STEM “dropping-out”. Motherhood ended Joyce’s academic career but didn’t stop Joyce from having a pioneering role in the discipline she loved: the study of small animals.
In 1965, Joyce’s husband Kevin invented a folding aluminum small animal trap that was so cutting edge that 50+ years later, the ‘Elliott Trap’ is still used around the world to capture terrestrial vertebrates for research or relocating purposes. This husband and wife team founded Elliott Scientific Equipment based out of Upwey, Australia which manufactured and shipped their traps around the globe. Joyce helped advise their clients on trapping methods plus answered biodiversity and animal behaviour questions.
Photo Credits: Doug Beckers (Wiki Commons 2.0)
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
For her Masters, Joyce Lanko examined two species of Peromyscus (Deer Mice) in Southern Ontario. As part of her thesis, Lanko devised a method for separating Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis from Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis based on body measurements.
While working on her thesis, Joyce Elliot Lanko contributed 21 specimens to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection. Not surprising, Lanko’s mammal donations are almost exclusively Rodentia (order containing voles, chipmunks, and mice). Three from Ontario and the rest from British Columbia. Her donation of a Cinereus Shrew is her only mammal specimen outside of this group, shrews belonging to the order Soricomorpha.
Joyce also had a keen interest in reptiles and amphibians. She added eight herpetology specimens to the collection including two Garter Snakes and a Wandering Salamander, one of the ‘lungless’ salamanders.
This Wandering Salamander, “Aneides vagrans”, was collected by Joyce Lanko.
Specimen No.: H001478. Photo credit: Ildiko Szabo
Researched and written by: Ildiko Szabo and Ailsa McFadyen-Mungall
Contributor Snapshot
Leo Jobin was born in a trap-line tent in Arctic Quebec. In 1929, he was hired as a BC Game Warden initially working in the interior of BC. From 1940 until he retired in 1955, he worked out of Williams Lake. In total, Jobin published 19 papers. On Sept 8, 1946 Jobin photographed the first known sighting of a Barred Owl in BC, a species that was at the time rapidly expanding its western range across North America. Jobin is credited with collecting the first Canadian record of a European Kestrel on December 10, 1946 at Alkai Lake (RBCM No. 15934). The Canadian Museum of Nature houses ~1,013 avian specimens collected by Jobin and the Royal BC Museum has ~425 of his avian specimens.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has 14 avian specimens and 56 mammal specimens procured for the museum by Leo Jobin. All these specimens were obtained while he was a Game Warden in the Cariboo District.
M000878: Joban donated this American Martin Skull in 1945. Also include this years gift to the museum was a Hawk Owl, plus skulls of Lynx, Bobcat, Fisher, otter, beaver, fox, mink, marten, wolf, and badger.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Contributor Snapshot
: In this 1910 photograph Taylor is examining a vulture wing. He excelled at preparing round-skin avian specimens but it is unknow if he prepared this particular bird. On the walls is displayed another of Taylor’s collections; this one of African cultural objects. (Image courtesy of the Taylor Family).
Lionel Edward Taylor (1880-1962): Forester, Fruit Grower, Business Man, Naturalist, Collector, Fellow of the Zoology Society of London (ZSL), Member of both the British Ornithologists’ Union (MBOU) and the American Ornithologist’s Union (AOU)
Lionel Edward Taylor loved collecting things that fascinated him. Though the bulk of these were bird specimens (1,900+) and plants (800+) Taylor was also very interested in cultural objects. At UBC, the Lionel E. Taylor family has donated objects at two museums: Museum of Anthropology and the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
Taylor came from a distinguished military family. His father and oldest brother were Colonels in the British Army plus his uncle was a Vice Admiral in the British Navy and later a member of Parliament (1930’s -1940’s). Taylor was keenly interested in birds, plants and animals. He and his youngest brother, Claude Harold Taylor were fascinated by Africa. At the beginning of the last century they both relocated to the Transvaal.
This 1875 map was drawn and published by Alexander Merensky and is labeled: Original Map of the Transvaal or South-African Republic. (downloaded from: History 1952/ Harvard University https://hist1952.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/items/show/179?collection=10 on 2024 April 08)
In August 1902, Lionel moved to South Africa to work for the Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service near Pretoria in the Transvaal. A year later Hilda Stirling sailed from Scotland to marry him. Two of their five children (including TMC Taylor) were born in South Africa where Taylor managed the Forestry Nursery in Irene, Transvaal. From 1906, he was involved with the School of Forestry in Tokai, Cape Colony. In 1908, Taylor was appointed Assistant Conservator of Forest for the Transvaal Region and was appointed as the Acting Conservator a year later.
Though not stated that Taylor was a founding member of the South African Ornithologists’ Union (SAOU), we do know that Lionel E. Taylor attended the foundational meeting in Johannesburg in 1904 and represented the Transvaal at subsequent SAOU meetings. (Note: The Transvaal was an independent state before the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910) During this period both Taylor brothers published articles in the Journal of the South African Ornithological Union. Lionel authored three papers and Claude one. As per Birdforum.net, a subspecies of the Olive Brush-shrike honours Claude H. Taylor: Chlorophoneus olivaceus taylori J. A. Roberts, 1914 (downloaded on 17 July 2024).
Opening paragraphs from: Taylor, L.E., 1906. The rise of ornithology in South Africa. Transvaal Agricultural Journal, 4(14), pp.289-295. https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA0000010_384
In 1911, Lionel E. Taylor and his family crossed the Atlantic in order for him to become the Manager of Bankhead Orchard in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. This orchard famous for its pears had been established by Taylor’s brother-in-law Thomas Willing (TW) Stirling in 1893. Stirling moved permanently to Scotland after WW1. Taylor actively managed the Bankhead Orchard or was part of its board until it was taken over by urban development circa 1964. Kelowna was also the home of Taylor’s eldest brother Col. Fred Arthur Taylor. In 1921 Claude H. Taylor, the brother that had been with him in Africa moved to Kelowna with his new bride.
In North America, Taylor continued to write and publish on birds. Some of these articles were on ornithological economic issues. For example: Taylor, L.E., 1915. Notes on birds likely to be of service in the destruction of grasshoppers in the Nicola Valley. Journal of the Entomological Society of British Columbia,7, pp.43-45.
Lionel E. Taylor drove his caravan 4,000 miles to New Orleans before it was hosted aboard the MS Silverbelle and shipped to South Africa. This customized Chevy truck provided Taylor transport, a field station and accommodation for his 1935 African botanical collecting trip. Taylor and his daughter Mavis inside the Chevy caravan (Image courtesy of The Taylor Family).
Taylor returned many times to Africa to observe nature and collect plants. In 1935 accompanied by his wife Hilda and their youngest daughter Mavis, they toured Africa for 16 months. This was followed by a second trip with Mavis in 1947/1948. Taylor made solo trips in 1951/1952 and in 1958/1959. The 1947 avian sighting are annotated in pencil in the margins of Taylor’s copy of: Dr. Austin Roberts’s The Birds of South Africa (1940) housed at the CTC. In both Canada and the United States, Taylor gave many lectures spreading his love of Africa and showing audiences specimens he collected during his African trips.
Obituaries and other links:
- South African birds in a Canadian museum: the legacy of colonial service by Lionel E Taylor recently published in a top-tier African ornithology journal: Ostrich 95(2): 83–86
- Biographical Database of Southern African Science: Lionel E. Taylor
- Biographical Database of Southern African Science: Claude H. Taylor
- British Columbia Fruit Growers Association website, Appendix A: Past Presidents
- Image of the Lionel M. Taylor Heritage House in Kelowna (I-52425)
- Birdforum/Bird Name Etymology
Lionel E. Taylor with a Gnu on one of his later trips to Africa. (Image courtesy of The Taylor Family)
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The CTC leather-bound specimen ledgers tell us that 494 African avian specimens from the L.E. Taylor Collection were added to the CTC’s specimen catalogue starting in 1965. This was approximately 3 years after Taylor died. Taylor collected and prepared the majority of the birds himself (487 specimens) and the remainder are attributed to his brother Claude H. Taylor. The labels on these birds give different localities or simply state “Transvaal” with no mention of South Africa.
In his JSAOU articles Taylor often refers to specimens in his personal collection and that of his brother. Many of these referenced specimens match specimens housed at the CTC. These published articles provide valuable and fascinating context for many of our CTC specimens.
B0013039 & B0013040 are both Gallinago nigripennis (African Snipe). They were collected near the city of Cape Town on the Western Cape of South Africa in January 1908 and November 1907 respectively. This genus of shorebird can vocalize by creating a drumming sound using its tail, not its vocal cords. Taylor reviews the literature on Gallinago Snipe drumming in the November 1925 issue of The Condor (p. 224-226: https://doi.org/10.2307/1363286) plus adds a section on his own experiments with tail feather of both African and European members of this genus and his ability to recreate this drumming sound using only tail feathers. (Photo credit: Ildiko Szabo)
Philip Jemielita, Lionel E Taylor’s Grandson came to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on April 15th, 2024 to donated circa 1905 African mammal hides (3 Springboks & 1 Leopard) collected by his grandfather. During this visit, Jemielita met with CTC and Herbarium Collection Curators to look at and discuss his grandfather’s avian and botanical specimens.
Philip Jemielita exploring his Grandfather’s avian specimens on the floor of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum during his April 15th, 2024 visit. |
Linda Jennings, Philip Jemielita, Ildiko Szabo, and Christopher Stinson looking at a subset of avian round skins collected and prepared by Lionel E. Taylor. (photo credits: Sarah Doran-Coelho). |
Contribution to the UBC Herbarium
Lionel E. Taylor also collected and donated his plant collection to UBC Herbarium. In total, Lionel E. Taylor donated 800+ specimens from both BC and Southern Africa many of which are the succulent plants that fascinated him. To honour his father, Lionel E. Taylor, Dr. Thomas MC Taylor, Director of Herbarium and Head of Botany (1954-1965) assigned the first vascular catalogue number V1 (V00001) to one of his father’s specimens. The first accessioned specimen is a branched horsetail, Equisetum ramosissium, L.E. Taylor collected at Versamel die Waters, East of Louis Trichardt, Transvaal on August 10, 1935.
The first accessioned specimen, Equisetum ramosissium, collected by L.E. Taylor. Left: Taylor’s Grand Nephew, Philip Jemielita holding UBC’s first accessioned specimen. Right: The full specimen with a label in Lionel E. Taylor’s handwriting noting the species, location, date, and his personal collection number (795). In the upper right-hand corner is a label that has a barcode plus a catalogue number: V1 (V00001). (photo credit: Sarah Doran- Coelho). |
The full specimen with a label in Lionel E. Taylor’s handwriting noting the species, location, date, and his personal collection number (795). In the upper right-hand corner is a label that has a barcode plus a catalogue number: V1 (V00001). (photo credit: Sarah Doran-Coelho). |
Lionel Taylor’s son, Dr. Thomas MC Taylor, taught at UBC from 1948-1968 and although he conducted research on many orders of plants, his prime love was ferns. Following in his father’s footsteps, TMCT collected and left a legacy of over 4,000+ herbarium specimens at the UBC Herbarium.
Before starting a trip, Taylor procured the necessary botanical collection permit, a document that was required but many collectors of Taylor’s era neglected to procure. (Document courtesy of the Taylor Family)
Written and researched by Ildiko Szabo, Phyllis Gaskell, Philip Jemielita and Linda Jennings.
Contributor Snapshot
When Mary F. Jackson finished her Masters in 1952, the UBC Zoology Department had yet to granted a female a PhD. This did not happen for another 11 years. Jackson taught at UBC from 1958 until 1990. Though only having a Masters degree, she was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1966.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Mary Fairfield Jackson specimen legacy is 95 mammals and birds specimens. The majority are extremely small mammals reflecting her thesis topic: Variation in an Isolated Population of Shrews of the Vagrans-obscurus Group. While teaching at UBC she conducted many studies on waterfowl resulting in 23 of her avain donations being goldeneyes and other ducks.
B004472: “On May 13, 1954, a drake goldeneye in full nuptial plumage was picked up in a moribund condition on Westwick Lake, 12 miles south of Williams Lake, BC. The specimen is intermediate between Bucephala islandica and B. clangula and is probably a hybrid. It was prepared as a study skin and is now N. 4472 in the collection of the Museum of Zoology, University of BC. The trachea was preserved with the specimen.” Extract from Mary. F. Jackson. 1959. A hybrid between Barrow’s and Common Goldeneyes. The Auk 76(1): 92-94.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Dr. Milkós D. F. Udvardy, 1919-1998. UBC Assistant Professor (1952-1966); worked at other universities before and after his UBC appointment.
Contributor Snapshot
Dr. Milkós D. F. (Nick) Udvardy was born and attended university in Debrecen, Hungary. His PhD was on the avian ecology of the Hungarian Plains. As well as 100’s of avian museum skins which he prepared himself, Udvardy left a legacy of 191 published papers and 8 books. He is best known for his textbook: Dynamic Zoogeography (1969). Speaking 6 languages and reading 5 others, Udvardy linked UBC ornithologist with colleagues from around the world. Udvardy assisted the 210 students and 30 faculty and their families from Sopron University’s School of Forestry to flee the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and migrate to Canada, many of whom came to UBC. After leaving UBC, Dr. Udvardy worked as a Professor of Biological Sciences at California State University, Sacramento from 1967 until his retirement in 1991. Both at UBC and at the many other universities he worked at, Udvardy was an inspiring mentor and grad student supervisor for a myriad of students.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
From 1952-1966 Udvardy worked as a UBC Zoology Assistant Professor lecturing on comparative anatomy and ornithology. During the 1958-59 academic year, Udvardy was a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii. Out of the 316 Udvardy specimens housed at the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, 133 birds were prepared by Udvardy while in Hawaii. They include Hawaiian endemics honeycreepers. The Cowan Tetrapod Collection is very fortunate that Udvardy contributed a pair of Laysan Ducks and a few Laysan Finches; species which are rarely found in small museum collections.
B011830: BirdLife International states that the breeding and resident area of Laysan Finches is 4 square kilometers on the small northwestern Hawaiian island of Kauō, formerly called Laysan Island. The finch populations fluctuate between 7,000 to 1,500 birds depending on when the last tropical storm hit the island. This endemic is a large billed honeycreeper; a generalist feeding on insects, albatross and other seabird eggs, carrion, as well as seeds and fruits.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Mrs. T. L. Thacker, 1871-1953, citizen scientist, farmer, pioneer homesteader and mother of 4 children
Contributor Snapshot
Mrs. T. L. Thacker (née Beatrice Muriel May Sprague) was a keen Natural History observer keeping records of flora and fauna as well as weather. She was born in England and grown up in Scotland. Beatrice Sprague’s father made it a condition of marriage that she travel to Hope, BC to check out the town and the homestead her fiance’s, T. Lindsay Thacker, was proposing as their permanent home. Beatrice’s journals from this 1906 journey are full of the scientific and common names of all the flora and fauna she was seeing as she and her companion (her fiancé’s sister) travelled across Canada by train and during their travels in southern BC. Both with her husband or solo, Mrs. T. L. Thacker published many articles in peer reviewed journals. This couple deposited many specimens at what is now called the Royal BC Museum and also to the UBC Museum of Zoology after it was founded in 1943.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Beatrice M. M. Thacker, who was better known as Mrs. T. L. Thacker, donated an eclectic variety of specimens to the CTC. They include a Rubber Boa, several Ermine with either winter white or summer brown colouration, hawks, owls and other birds. Mrs. T. L. Thacker and her husband were friends of Kenneth Racey, and Ian McTaggart-Cowan. They were members of the same natural history societies. At some of these meetings, Mrs. T. L Thacker played a leading role.
Photograph courtesy of Beatrice M. M. Sprague’s granddaughter, Rene MacDonald of Quesnel, BC.
B003519: The label closest to the tail of this Cooper’s Hawk states: received in flesh, Collector Mrs. Thacker. In 1935, this bird was given to and prepared by Kenneth Racey who later donated it to the CTC.
Researched and written by Laura N. Webb and Ildiko Szabo
Contributor Snapshot
Nancy Mahoney McAllister (nėe Nancy Ann Mahoney), first female UBC Zoology PhD graduate (1963), University of Ottawa Professor of Biology. Nancy Mahoney McAllister was the first female to be granted a Ph.D by UBC Zoology. She published her thesis material on Grebe behaviour in the prestigious Wilson Journal of Ornithology and The Auk. McAllister pursued diverse avian topics while a Professor at the University of Ottawa. As a Yoquot Project team member, she identifying and publishing on the avian remains found at this First Nations archeological site on Nootka Island, BC. During her UBC studies, she meet her husband who later became the Curator of Fishes at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Their busy life together include raising five children.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
McAllister’s supervisor for both her Masters and her Doctorate was the founder of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, Ian McTaggart Cowan. Nancy contribution to the collection is small: 1 North American Deermouse and 1 previously banded Brewer’s Sparrow.
B016278: McAllister recognized the importance of salvaging this banded Brewer’s Sparrow when she found it at Kilpoola Lake in the BC Okanagan. Banded bird specimens are sometimes called double databirds. Information is gathered the day they are banded and again when they are recaptured or found dead.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
Contributor Snapshot
Dr. Rudy Boonstra (1949- ), Professor, University of Toronto Scarborough, Department of Biological Sciences, recipient of the 2024 F. E. Fry Metal
For 50 years, Dr. Rudy Boonstra led undergraduates, graduate students, and research groups at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Boonstra, his students, and collaborators have conducted fieldwork in Ontario, most of the provinces of western Canada, the boreal forest of SW Yukon at the Arctic Institute Base beside Kluane Lake, and the Arctic coast of the NWT at an old DEW line site (Pearce Point). His research interests are wide, focusing on the adaptations mammals and birds have to their natural environment. With students and collaborators, he has tackled population regulation and limitation, the roles of social processes and predation, stress physiology and brain mechanisms, maternal effects, and epigenetics. Either directly or with collaborators Boonstra has worked on over 35 mammal species, 2 bird species, and 1 reptile. He has published over 260 papers, with key ones in each of the above areas. Among them are review papers and many technique papers that have advanced our study of animals in their natural habitat.
Boonstra is beloved as a mentor and a teacher. Many UTSC undergrads first met Professor Boonstra when enrolled in one of his courses: Fundamentals of Ecology, Advanced Population Ecology, Environmental Biology, or the Biological Consequences of Climate Change.
Rudy Boonstra teaching undergrads at the University of Toronto. (Photo credit: Ken Jones)
Over the years Boonstra has supervised or co-supervised 24 M.Sc.’s and 20 Ph.D.’s, and 12 Post-doctoral Fellows. Collaborations with colleagues at all levels – their guidance and criticisms were critical in his development and thinking, especially his Ph.D. supervisor Dennis Chitty, and mentor Charles Krebs. The latter has been key over his entire career. With his family, Boonstra spent a sabbatical year in Canberra, Australia working on the causes of house mouse plagues in southeastern Australia. While there he learned a critical technique under the guidance of Dr. Lyn Hinds: How to measure hormone levels in plasma and this was key to his future research projects on stress, reproduction, and life histories in mammals and birds. Boonstra also spent a year in Oslo, Norway at the Centre for Advanced Studies working with a team studying the causes of population cycles in mammals. Chance meetings have resulted in collaborations that inspired different research directions. Martin Wojtowicz (UofT, Dept Physiology) stimulated his interest in neurogenesis (formation of new neurons in the adult brain) and how studying this in wild mammals could help our understanding of how this occurs. Kiran Soma (UBC, Dept Psychology) stimulated his interest in the hormonal basis for territoriality during the non-breeding season.
Rudy Boonstra holding a Black Grouse while assisting colleagues studying their lekking behavior, April 2013 Norway. (Photo credit: Knut)
Check out the 36-minute mark of this CBC Nature of Things episode called: Remarkable Rabbits. Dr. Rudy Boonstra’s work on Snowshoe Hare / Canada Lynx interactions is highlighted with a segment on how female hares pass on the “Ghosts of Predators Past” information to their young.
Snowshoe hare in the Yukon surrounded by its food (willow) and its protective snowy background. (Photo credit: Rudy Boonstra)
Boonstra first learned how to prepare museum specimens while he was studying at UBC. He was a teaching assistant for one of J. Mary Taylor’s mammalogy courses (Curator, Director of the Cowan Tetrapod Collection 1971-1982). His interest in museum and museum collections did not end there. Over the years Boonstra has prepared and donated 97 specimens to the Royal Ontario Museum. The majority of these specimens are Northern Collared Lemmings.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
In 1976, Rudy Boonstra defended his PhD thesis titled: Experimental studies of the population processes in the vole Microtus Townsendii. The different chapters in Boonstra’s thesis assess the effects of survival and dispersal during population declines, juvenile survival, reliability of trapping methods, and the impact of predation. They resulted in 5 papers. Side projects and collaborations resulted in an additional 6 vole papers.
Rudy Boonstra at his PhD study site on Westham Island in 1975. The experiment prevented voles from dispersing away from their home range by fencing in a large area, which markedly reduced that mortality, but resulted in overpopulation and severe overgrazing. (Photo credit: Charles Krebs)
When first applying to Graduate School, Boonstra interests were in a different direction:
“In my last 2 summers when I was an undergrad at U. Calgary, I worked on wolves for the Canadian Wildlife Service in northern Jasper National Park. I then approached Ian McTaggart Cowan to do a PhD on wolves, but he declined. He had another PhD working on them. I then switched to the opposite end of the size spectrum – the Townsend’s vole – and approached Dennis Chitty. It was the best decision I made – the rigorous guidance and being able to conduct experiments on small mammals, test hypotheses, collaborate with others, and generate publications. Charles Krebs was also my mentor and key to my success and progress, both then and now.”
Boonstra contributed 6 birds and an impressive 936 mammal specimens to the Cowan Tetrapod collection. Most of them are Townsend’s Voles obtained from his PhD removal experiments on Westham Island in the delta of the Fraser River, BC near where the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary is located today. (Photo credit: Nola Morey)
Dr. Rudy Boonstra is currently a Professor Emeritus. Check out his website.
Researched and written by Ildiko Szabo
T. L. Thacker, 1878-1961, Citizen scientist, professional plant surveyor (worked under contract for Dr. Davidson, founder of the UBC Herbarium), farmer, pioneer homesteader
Contributor Snapshot
In Hope, T. Lindsay Thacker and his wife Beatrice homesteaded at the top of what was then Little Mountain. Today Little Mountain is called Thacker Mountain and the lower portion is a regional park. The Thacker Homestead (which includes the family gravesite) near the top of the mountain was donated to UBC with the idea that it be maintained as an ecological reserve and research site. This couple were keen amateur naturalist and published extensively. Together, they conducted many field project including: Bird notes made at Vaseux Lake, South Okanagan, BC, April, May and June, 1922, published in Canadian Field Naturalist. The following year, the Canadian Wildlife Service designated Vaseux Lake as a migratory bird sanctuary in part due to the findings of this intrepid duo. In September 1953, the couple received an award for outstanding service as cooperative weather observers of the Meteorological Division of the Canadian Department of Transport.
Contribution to the Cowan Tetrapod Collection
Thacker went on collecting trips with the founder of the UBC Herbarium, Dr. Davidson. The UBC Herbarium houses 43 vascular plant specimens collected by Thacker. The Cowan Tetrapod Collection has 2 bird and 17 mammal specimens. Thacker published frequently, including an article about bat species overwintering in Hope, BC.
Photograph courtesy of Beatrice M. M. Sprague’s granddaughter, Rene MacDonald of Quesnel, BC.
M005480: “An early spring specimen was captured in the house on April 3, 1932. This proved to be an adult female Myotis californicus caurinus. The specimen is in the Kenneth Racey Collection where it was examined and identified by I. McT. Cowan of the Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia.” Excerpt from: T. L. Thacker. 1944. Winter occurrences of bats in Hope, BC. The Murrelet 25: p. 10.
Researched and written by Laura N. Webb and Ildiko Szabo