Animals named after Aberdeen Biologists

1942

1995

Professor Zbigniew (Bob) Kabata was born in Poland in 1924. At the age of 13, young Kabata entered a military academy in eastern Poland. From the ages of 16 to 21, he fought along with other partisans in a vicious clandestine war against the Nazis. After the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces in 1939, Kabata joined the Armia Krajowa and fought against the occupying forces, leading assaults on prisoner of war camps at Opatów and Mielec in March, 1943, to free captive comrades. The unit he served in became legendary in Poland and Kabata himself was cited several times for bravery. For exceptional heroism during the war he was awarded a Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari (the Polish equivalent of the VC and the oldest combat order in the world, established in 1772), twice the Cross of Valour, the War Medal (three bars), the Underground Army Cross, the Partisan Cross and the Gold Medal for Contributions to the Defence of the Country. Kabata wrote several patriotic poems honouring the Polish armed forces. His most famous work, The Underground Army, became the unofficial anthem of the Polish combatant community and is inscribed on numerous Polish war memorials.

In 1945 Kabata pulled off a hair-raising escape and ended up in Italy. When Italy signed the peace treaty with the allies, the Polish 2 Army Corps (the unit in which he served) was moved to England. He then went on to become a North Sea fisherman and it was here, on the decks of fishing boats that he developed and nurtured a passion for science. He went on to become a brilliant student and graduated with First Class honours in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. In the process, he received the Nicoll Class Prize in Zoology in 1952 and again in 1954 and McGillivray Prize for the best graduate in zoology in 1955. Two graduate degrees soon followed from the University of Aberdeen: a PhD in 1959 dealing with The genus Lernaeocera in the northern North Sea and a DSc in 1966, recognizing his important scientific contributions in parasitology. His subsequent career took him to the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen and then to the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

Bob is a distinguished scientist and international authority on the biology of the parasitic copepods of fish. He was awarded an Honorary DSc by the Agricultural College, Marine Fisheries Department of the University of Szczecin, in Poland, and an Honorary DLitt from the Malaspina University College in Nanaimo, Canada. For his contributions to world science he has received the A. Wardle Medal from the Canadian Society of Zoology, the K. Janicki Medal from the Polish Parasitological Society and the K. Demel Medal from the Sea Fisheries Institute in Gdynia, Poland. His combined wartime and scientific achievements have been recognized by the award of the Commander's Cross (with a Star) of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In April 2002 the Canadian Bar Association, Immigration Branch, granted him the newly established 'Immigrant Achievement Award' of which he was the first ever recipient.

Bob Kabata has enjoyed the honour of having no fewer than 21parasites named after him. In four cases his name was used to denote the genus of the parasite, in 14 cases his name was used to denote the species, and in one case it was used to denote both the genus and the species: Bobkabata kabatabobbus.

Bobkabata kabatabobbus is a parasitic copepod. The original (type) specimen was collected from the flesh at the base of a fin of a pallid sculpin Cottunculus thomsoni caught in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.

Bobkabata kabatabobbus

Professor George Mackenzie Dunnet, Emeritus Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen, was born on 19th April 1928 in Caithness and died in Copenhagen on 11th September 1995. In true Scots tradition, he was a man of parts - a distinguished ecologist, an accomplished taxonomist, a gifted teacher and respected chairman of government committees, where he applied his deep understanding of ecology to practical and policy issues.

George developed an interest in fleas while a student at Aberdeen and began publishing papers in 1950. However, it was his work in Australia that gave him his outstanding opportunity to develop and utilize this interest. Working on indigenous mammals in several parts of the country brought him into contact with host animals and their fleas and also with many other wildlife biologists with similar contacts. He both collected fleas himself and stimulated others to do likewise, coordinating the process to result in a substantial amount of material ultimately destined for the Australian National Insect Collection or some of the state museums. Finding that identification was less than simple and dependent on a number of scattered publications he resolved to write a unifying paper to collate what was known about the fleas of Australia. Furthermore, many new species were being discovered which required description. The project was to be completed, with the help of David Mardon, after George returned to Scotland. New species were described culminating in the publication of the Monograph of Australian Fleas in Australia in 1974, nearly twenty years after George conceived the idea.

The projects with which George was associated resulted in the description of fourteen new species and subspecies and three new genera of fleas. One species, Acanthopsylla dunneti, was named after him. The species is known only from Tasmania where its host is the dusky antechinus Antechinus swainsonii, a small carnivorous marsupial.

Acanthopsylla dunneti - anal segment of male
drawing by David Mardon

Professor Paul Racey holds the Regius Chair of Natural History at the University of Aberdeen.

Paul is internationally known for his work on the biology of bats, originally in the United Kingdom but more recently in Asia, Africa and Madagascar.

In 2006 a new species of bat from Kianjavato, Province de Fianarantsoa, Madagascar, was named Pipistrellus raceyi in recognition of Paul's longstanding commitment to the study and conservation of bats worldwide and in particular to his on-going programme of capacity building and bat research in Madagascar. The English name of the bat is Racey’s pipistrelle bat.

Dr Lindsay Laird was, until her tragically early death in 2001, a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Zoology. She was internationally known as a fish biologist with a great expertise in aquaculture.

Lindsay was born in England, and was educated at Worcester Grammar School for girls and at Newnham College, Cambridge where she read Natural Sciences, Zoology. She was a capable sportswoman, playing tennis for her school and squash for Cambridge University where she gained a half-blue.

She played a full part in all aspects of University life and even had two moths from Borneo named after her by a postgraduate admirer. Over subsequent years she took great delight in mentioning this precocious honour to upstage eminent zoologists many years her senior.

Calliteara pseudolairdae

Calliteara lairdae

Professor Monty Priede is a marine biologist in the Department of Zoology where he heads a unique interdisciplinary team of biologists and engineers concerned with study of fish in the natural environment.

Monty's work is mainly focussed on underwater acoustic telemetry and experiments in the deep sea using lander vehicles capable of operating to 6000m depth. Behaviour of deep sea fauna is monitored by cameras deployed on the sea floor and acoustic tracking systems. The team has deep-sea trawl equipment, traps and a fleet of lander vehicles.

In 1998, a species of digenean helminth living in the deep sea fish Epigonus telescopus was named Prodistomum priedei in recognition of Monty's contributions to the biology of deep-sea fishes.

In September 2007 Monty was immortalised once again when a newly discovered deep-sea eelpout was named Pachycara priedei. The eelpout was among a catch of fish landed during a trawl of a stretch of the darkest depths of the Southern Indian Ocean by the Royal Research Ship Discovery. The scientists were carrying out research for the Benthic Crozet Project, a major exploration of the waters and ocean dwellers off the Crozet Islands.

Pachycara priedei

Professor Peter Boyle is a marine biologist with a particular interest in cephalopods, the squids and octopuses. The cephalopods are one of the most fascinating groups of marine animals. With many complex and unique physiological systems and behaviour patterns, these animals are of central importance to many marine food webs, especially those involving marine mammals, birds and larger fish. They are also an increasingly important resource of global significance.

Peter's research interests cover all aspects of cephalopod biology, ecology and life cycles. In particular, the ecology and fisheries of North East Atlantic and Mediterranean squid and octopus species, reproduction, development, growth and ageing, trophic ecology, and deep-sea or shelf edge species and the role of squid in the diet of marine mammals.

In 2005, Peter Boyle and Paul Rodhouse published Cephalopods: Ecology and Fisheries, a thorough review of this most important animal group.

The deep sea cirrate octopus Grimpoteuthis boylei is named in recognition of Peter's considerable contributions to cephalopod biology. The species inhabits the Porcupine abyssal plain in the North Atlantic.

Grimpoteuthis boylei

Mr Bill Edwards is the Teaching & Support Services Team Leader in the School of Biological Sciences at Aberdeen University.

In the 1960s Bill was a research technician in the Department of Natural History, at the University's Marischal College, where he worked on the biology of tapeworms with Dr Harford (Haffie) Williams.

In appreciation of Bill's major contribution to these studies Haffie gave the name Acanthobothrium edwardsi to a tapeworm from the spiral intestine of the skate Raja fullonica.

Dr Ken MacKenzie joined the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory in 1961 and stayed there as a marine parasitologist until taking early retirement in 1995. At first he worked under his old friend and mentor Bob Kabata until the Canadians poached him in 1967. For much of hs working life, Ken's main interests lay in the use of parasites as biological tags in population studies of marine fish, and as indicators of marine pollution. More recently he has become involved in studies of parasites in relation to the mariculture of cold water marine fish, particularly the developing cod farming industry.

Ken has two degrees from Aberdeen University graduating with a Ph.D. in 1971 and a D.Sc. 1989.

After leaving the Marine Laboratory in 1995 he joined the Zoology Department at Aberdeen University as an Honorary Senior Lecturer and then as a Research Fellow, the post that he holds today.

Ken's contributions to marine parasitology have been recognised by the naming of several worms parasitic in marine fish. They are: the nematode Proleptus mackenziei from Raja fyllae in the Barents Sea, the digenean subfamily Kenmackenziinae and the digenean genus Kenmackenzia.

Professor Harford Williams, known to all simply as Haffie, was educated in Aberystwyth where he studied under the late, great Gwendolen Rees. He is, consequently, a classically-trained parasitologist whose abiding interest has been the parasites of fish. After a brief spell at the University in Cardiff, Haffi left to become Assistant Director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Helminthology at St Albans. Academia beckoned again, however, and he took up a post in Aberdeen where he stayed long enough to train several fish parasitologists, most of whom took up careers in parasitology.

He returned to his native Wales as Director of the Open University, a post he held until retirement. Haffi is a charismatic individual who infected (as a parasitologist should) those around him with the same enthusiasm, not only for his subject but for whatever caught his interest. Haffi is a meticulous biologist whose careful studies of, mainly, cestodes in fish earned him an enviable reputation amongst his peers.

The cestodes Echeneibothrium williamsi, Phyllobothrium williamsi and Echinobothrium harfordi are named in Haffi's honour. E. williamsi was described from a specimen from the spiral valve of the skate Raja chilensis collected from the seas off central Chile.

Dr Alasdair McVicar graduated in Zoology here in Aberdeen and went on to complete his PhD under the supervision of Haffie Williams.

Alasdair then took up a post at the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen where he remained for almost the whole of his career. During the latter years he assumed responsibility for much of the regulatory aspects of disease control connected to the developing aquaculture industry.

For the last years of his working life Alasdair was invited, through this expertise in this area, to take up a position with the Canadian Fisheries Directorate. He returned to Scotland recently and has retired to Orkney where he is self building a home on Westray.

Alasdair has the digenean genus Macvicaria named after him

Dr David Gibson graduated in zoology at the University of Nottingham and then studied for his PhD at the University of Aberdeen under the supervision of Haffie Williams.

David the joined the staff of the British Museum (Natural History) (now the Natural History Museum) in London in 1971, becoming Head of the Parasitic Worms Division in 1977. His research interests have centered on the systematics of helminth parasites, especially the digeneans of aquatic animals. Having produced more than 150 publications on this topic, he is now recognized as the world's foremost authority on the trematodes of fishes. The recognition of his expertise brought him numerous invitations to lecture in many places in the world. He was a visiting professor in the University of Queensland, Australia, and in the University of Tromso, Norway; he is also an honorary lecturer in the University of Stirling, Scotland. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee in the Institute of Parasitology, Czech Academy of Sciences, and is now a member of the evaluation committee in the same institute.

David is a prolific author of taxonomic keys and is Editor-in-Chief of Systematic Parasitology. An impressive number of taxa are named after him including:

The genera Gibsoniela, Gibsonia, Gibsonivermis, Gibsonnema and Gibsonium

Brevimulticaecum gibsoni
Acanthogalea gibsoni
Corynosoma gibsoni
Paracapillaria gibsoni
Pseudodiplectanum gibsoni
Neoechinorhynchus gibsoni
Discoverytrema gibsoni
Neonotoporus gibsoni
Steganoderma gibsoni
Proteocephalus gibsoni
Retractomonorchis gibsoni
Helicometra gibsoni
Rhipidocotyle gibsoni
Indocapillaria gibsoni
Pseudempleurosoma gibsoni
Peracreadium gibsoni
Acanthobothrium gibsoni
Centrorhynchus gibsoni

Neale Monks graduated in 1994 with a First in Zoology. He then headed south to London to work on trilobites at The Natural History Museum. Trilobites were a class of arthropods that appeared early in the Cambrian, reached their peak during the Ordovician around 450 million years ago, but were extinct by the close of the Permian. They were exclusively marine, and most crawled along the bottom eating soft-bodied invertebrates.

This work led to the award of a PhD from the University of London in 1998, together with the Judd prize for excellence. This was followed by a NERC fellowship at the NHM in the field of mass extinction events.

Neale works as an assistant professor at the London Campus of Pepperdine University, where he teaches natural science. He is also a freelancer contributing to magazines and web sites. He has written books on cladistic methodology, ammonites, amateur astronomy, and old computers, and has another book due out in May 2006 on brackish water fishes. So if nothing else, everything he learned about fish at Aberdeen has proved to be very useful!

Neale also finds time to act as an exhibits and development consultant and has worked on projects with the State Capitol.

In recognition of his contributions to palaeontology Neale has had a trilobite and a fossil fish named after him.

The trilobite, Gerastos monksi lived during the Silurian, about 430 million years ago. It was described in: Jonathan Adrain, Proetid trilobites from the Silurian (Wenlock-Ludlow) of the Cape Phillips Formation, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Palaeontographica Italica, vol. 84, 1995.

The fish is called Ellaserrata monksi, and is a fish called a porgy (family: Sparidae), a perciform fish a bit like a cichlid, except marine. This species is from the Monte Bolca, Northern Italy, an Eocene formation, and is about 50 million years old. It is very similar to living sparids, and the entire Monte Bolca fossil fish assemblage demonstrates that many of the modern reef fishes we see today evolved very rapidly during the early part of the Tertiary. Ellaserrata monksi was described in: Julia Day, Phylogenetic relationships of the Sparidae (Teleostei: Percoidei) and implications for convergent trophic evolution, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. 76, 2002.

Professor Marcel Jaspars is an Aberdeen chemist with an interest in finding potential pharmaceuticals from marine invertebrates, particularly sponges, soft corals and seasquirts. These soft-bodied creatures lack a physical means of defence and do not possess an immune system to ward off infections. They are, however, prolific chemical factories producing a wealth of chemicals with high biological activity that act as an alternative immune system.

Marcel has been an avid diver since the age of 14, and finally found a way to combine his love of marine life with his interest in chemistry when he worked with Professor Phil Crews at the University of California at Santa Cruz. On expedition in Indonesia in 1996, he spotted an interesting-looking specimen of soft coral on a reef off the small island of Mayu in the Sulawesi sea. The organism produced an unusual chemical that goes by the rather inelegant name of 3b-7b-11-trihydroxy-5a,6a-epoxy-9,11-secogorgostan-9-one, which has mild activity against leukaemia and ovarian cancer.

On returning from the expedition, the specimen was sent for taxonomic analysis to Dr Leen van Ofwegen at the Netherlands Natural History Museum, one of the few experts in soft coral taxonomy, who named the species Lobophytum jasparsi after its collector.

Dr Mike Swaine is a botanist at The University of Aberdeen. Mike's research is focussed on the ecology and management of tropical rain forests, and to some extent of tropical savannas.

The west African aroid Nephthytis swainei was named in honour of his contributions to tropical ecology.

The Araceae are a family of herbaceous monocotyledons with 104 genera and about 3700 species The vast majority of the genera occur in the New World tropics. Members of the family are highly diverse in life forms, leaf morphology, and inflorescence characteristics. Life forms range from submerged or free-floating aquatics to terrestrial, and to epiphytic or hemiepiphytic plants or climbers. The family is best characterized by its distinctive inflorescence, a spadix with bisexual or unisexual and subtended by a solitary spathe on a long or very short peduncle.