[Taxacom] John Edward Gray (1800-1875)

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Richard and Andy,
        Although John Edward Gray concentrated heavily on molluscs and
reptiles in his early years, he expanded his interests into mammals once
he was promoted to the head curator of zoology at the British Museum.
Whales and dolphins seem to have become a major interest particularly at
the generic level (quite a number of currently recognized cetacean
genera were named by him).  He described Eschrichtius as a separate
genus, but not as a separate family as others did in the 20th Century.            
       So I would say that he tended to take a middle ground approach
when it came to splitting versus lumping (even though a number of his
cetacean species were later reduced to synonymy within in other species,
but I wouldn't regard him as being an excessive splitter of species
compared to some other mammalogists of his time). If he discovered new
species of birds, he apparently usually let his younger brother take
care of describing those.  So I have a rather positive view of his
contributions to mammalogy, naming a good number of new genera
(especially in the Cetacea), but not doing so excessively.  Generally a
balanced approach in my opinion.  
          ----------Ken

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Mabbett wrote:

On 5 June 2011 18:11, Richard Petit <r.e.petit at att.net> wrote: 
> Having just compiled a list of John Edward Gray's >molluscan
publications and 
> a list of his molluscan taxa, I would like to know how his >work on
other 
> Phyla is regarded.  Any comments on his work, or >references to
published 
> articles in which the quality of his work is addressed, >will be most 
> appreciated. 
I wrote this: 
      http://www.rspb-walsall.org.uk/gray/ 
and did some work on: 
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Gray 
and shall be interested to see what you discover. Perhaps you could
update the Wikipedia article? 
-- 
Andy Mabbett