George Albert BoulengerFRS[1] (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botanist during the last 30 years of his life, especially in the study of roses.[2]
In 1880, he was invited to work at the Natural History Museum, then a department of the British Museum, by Dr. Albert C. L. G. Günther and assigned to the task of cataloguing the amphibians in the collection. His position in the British Museum meant that he had to be a civil servant of the British Empire, so became a naturalized British subject. In 1882, he became a first-class assistant in the Department of Zoology and remained in that position until his retirement in 1920.
After his retirement from the British Museum, Boulenger studied roses and published 34 papers on botanical subjects and two volumes on the roses of Europe. He died in Saint Malo, France.
According to biographical accounts, he was incredibly methodical and had an amazing memory that enabled him to remember every specimen and scientific name he ever saw. He also had extraordinary powers of writing, seldom made a second draft of anything he wrote, and his manuscripts showed but few corrections before going to the publisher.
Boulenger also played the violin, could speak French, German, and English apart from reading Spanish, Italian and a bit of Russian. As a zoologist, he also had a working knowledge of both Greek and Latin.
By 1921, Boulenger had published 875 papers[1] totaling more than 5,000 pages, as well as 19 monographs on fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. The list of his publications and its index of species covers 77 printed pages.
He described 1,096 species of fish, 556 species of amphibians, and 872 species of reptiles. He was famous for his monographs on amphibians, lizards and other reptiles, and fishes, for example, his monographs on the fishes of Africa.
His son, Edward George Boulenger (1888–1946), was also a zoologist and held the post of Director of the London Zoo Aquarium.
Work on cave-dwelling fish
In 1897, King Leopold II of Belgium started to recruit naturalists to help create the Congo museum. Boulenger was named chairman for this commission.
His main discovery in 1921 was a strange fish from the Congo. It was eyeless and lacked pigmentation. He recognized it as new and unrelated to any extant epigean (eyed, surface) species of Africa. He wrote a brief paper describing this new species of cave fish, the first ever described from Africa. He called it Caecobarbus geertsii, from caeco = blind, barbus = barb, and geertsii, honoring a mysterious person, M. Geerts, who provided him with the specimen. Today, it is known as the Congo blind barb or African blind barb.
Boulenger described hundreds of reptile taxa; 587 species described by him are still recognised today. He also described many amphibians and fishes.
Taxa named in his honor
These 26 reptile species, recognised today, bear George Boulenger's name in the specific name, as boulengeri, boulengerianus, boulengerii, or georgeboulengeri :[4][5]
In the above list, a binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than the genus to which it is currently assigned.
Xenophysogobio boulengeri (T. L. Tchang, 1929) was named for Boulenger, who provided "some guidance" (translation) in the completion of Tchang's paper.[11]
^Stafleu FA, Cowan RS (1976). Taxonomic literature: a selective guide to botanical publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types, 2nd edition. Vol. 1: A–G. Utrecht: Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema. p. 384. ISBN 978-90-313-0224-6. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
^Index biographique des membres et associés de l'Académie royale de Belgique (1769–2005). p. 36.
^"boulengeri ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Boulenger", pp. 33–35).
^Wallach V; Wüster W; Broadley D [in French] (2009). "In praise of subgenera: taxonomic status of cobras of the genus Naja Laurenti (Serpentes: Elapidae)" (PDF). Zootaxa. 2236: 26–36. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2236.1.2. S2CID 14702999.
^Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (23 May 2024). "Family MOCHOKIDAE Regan 1912 (Squeakers or Upside-down Catfishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
^Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (30 June 2024). "Family CLARIIDAE Bonaparte 1845 (Airbreathing or Labyrinth Catfishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
^Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (22 September 2018). "Family LORICARIIDAE: Subfamily HYPOSTOMINAE Kner 1853 (Suckermouth Catfishes or Plecos)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
^Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (4 December 2018). "Order CICHLIFORMES: Family CICHLIDAE: Subfamily PSEUDOCRENILABRINAE (l-o)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
^Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (22 September 2018). "Order CYPRINIFORMES: Families ACHEILOGNATHIDAE, GOBIONIDAE and TANICHTHYIDAE". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
^Harmer, S. F.; Shipley, A. E., eds. (1904). "Fishes (systematic account of Teleostei) by G. A. Boulenger". The Cambridge Natural History, Vol. 7. pp. 541–727.
^"Review of The Cambridge Natural History, Vol. VII". The Athenaeum (4031): 114. 28 January 1905.
External links
Wikisource has original works by or about: George Albert Boulenger
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Snakes of Europe
Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Albert Boulenger.
Works by or about George Albert Boulenger at the Internet Archive
Boulenger GA (1890). The Fauna of British India. Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Batrachia. London: Secretary of State for India in Council. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xviii + 541 pp. Scanned version.
List of reptiles described by Boulenger in the Reptile Database