Carl Leavitt Hubbs

Carl Leavitt Hubbs is a American ichtyologist , born the October 18th 1894 with Williams (Arizona) and dead the June 30th 1979 with La Jolla, California of the continuation of a cancer of the kidneys.

Biography

Youth

He is the son of Charles Leavitt and Elizabeth (born Goss) Hubbs. His/her father occupies of very varied employment (as farmer, owner of an iron mine or owner of newspaper). The family moves several times before settling in San Diego where the young boy will take taste for the Natural history. After the divorce of his parents in 1907, he lives with his mother who opens a school deprived with Redondo Beach (California). It is his/her maternal grandmother, Jane Goble Goss, one of the first ladies doctors, who initiates the Hubbs young person with the harvest of the shells and other marine creatures.

One of its professors, impressed by its capacities in sciences, recommends to him to study chemistry with the Université of Berkeley. The family moves once more and settles in Los Angeles. There, it to be noticed by George Bliss Culver (1875-1949), one of the many voluntary collaborators of David Starr Jordan (1851-1931), which encourages it to give up the study of the birds that he had to begin, to be interested in fish and in particular in those river of the area of Los Angeles, at the time far from known. It makes its studies with the Université Stanford and follows there in particular the courses of the ichtyologist Charles Henry Gilbert (1859-1928), a disciple of David Starr Jordan. It is Gilbert who will become his mentor allotting to him, like work of student, the load of the conservation of the fish collection of Stanford. It is at that time that it becomes acquainted with John Otterbein Snyder (1867-1943), another disciple of Jordan. It obtains its Bachelor off Arts in 1916 and its Master off Arts in 1917. Jordan, which meets Hubbs at this time there, will say of him that it is student shining and extremely worker.

Conservative

From 1917 to 1920, it is preserving assisting Poisson S, Amphibien S and Reptile S with the Field Museum off Natural History of Chicago. It Marie with Laura Cornelia Clark the June 15th 1918, union of which will be born two children. His wife also studied in Stanford (where it obtains her Bachelor off Arts in 1915 and its Master off Arts in 1916) and which teaches mathematics.

In 1920, it becomes preserving fish with the museum of zoology of the Université of Michigan, function which it preserves for 24 years. It obtains in 1927, in this same university, its pH. D. with a intitutlée thesis The Structural Consequences off Modifications off the Developmental Rate in Fishes Considered in Refers to Certain Problems off Evolution . Hubbs will contribute to enrich the collection by the museum mainly by made harvests itself, the members of its team or her students. In 1929, it takes part in a scientific voyage to Java from where it brings back five tons of specimens. Hubbs also agrees to determine the collections of other institutions, which makes it possible the museum to receive many specimens. Laura Hubbs, his wife, is also employed by the museum where she works on the catalog of the collections. Hubbs study hybridization at the many ones of fish.

California

In addition to its functions of conservation, Hubbs is the first director of the Research institute on fishings within the Department of conservation of Michigan (1930-1935). Within this framework, it undertakes various research as well inventory of faunas of the area, as on the mortality and the pollution waters, the growth and the predation. During its stay at the university of Michigan, Hubbs makes appear more than 300 publications, almost entirely devoted to fish. It is not limited to those of the the United States and thus makes appear, with David Starr Jordan, a study on an important fish collection of the Japan.

From 1944 to 1969, he teaches off biology with the Scripps Institute Oceanography of the the University of California of San Diego of La Jolla and where he replaces Francis Bertody Sumner (1874-1945). From 1969 to 1979, he is professor emeritus. He accepts this station for the new possibilities of research that he opens to him because its wages are weaker than in Michigan and the payment of the institution prevents the recruiting of his wife, but this one will continue to take part in the searches of her husband.

The restrictions due to the war, like the fact that Scripps Institute had rented its ship of research to the army, restricted the possibilities of research considerably. During the summer 1946, Errol Flynn (1909-1959), wire of a marine biologist, offers to Hubbs to accompany it during a cruising on board sound Yacht, the Zaca . The result is not very good but Hubbs discovers the strong rate of endemism of the species of the Guadeloupe.

In the years which follow the war, Hubbs begins several applied research in the field from economic or sporting fishing. Continuation of the observations showing the transformations of the populations according to the changes of the temperature of the Pacific Ocean, it starts to study the old climates (in particular by the dating of the mollusc shells). That led to the foundation of a laboratory in 1957 charged to provide datings for archaeological or geological samples. It will bequeath its archaeological collection to the Museum of the man of San Diego in 1973.

Its activity of scientist

Hubbs makes appear 712 publications. He studies initially fish of the Big lakes but after being itself installed in La Jolla he widens his research with the marine mammals. He is also a credit popularizer, as well through articles for popular reviews or the Britannica encyclopedia as in radio programs. He sensitizes the public of the years 1920 and 1930 with the need for protection of the habitats of the marine mammals like fish of the Vallée of dead the. Its action in favor of environmental protection will be rewarded by the gold medal for the San Diego Natural History Society.

Member of several learned societies, it takes an active part in the activity of the American Society off Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and in his publication Copeia . He is also member of the Wildlife Society, of the San Diego Natural History Society (1944), of the National Academy off Sciences (1952), of the Société linnéenne of London (1965). Hubbs receives many rewards in particular of the Academy off Natural Sciences off Philadelphia and California Academy off Sciences.

Hubbs constitutes an important specialized library (which it estimates, in 1944, to contain 40.000 works and reviews), in particular thanks to the purchase of the library of Carl H. Eigenmann (1863-1927), in which was certain works of the library of Albert Charles Lewis Günther (1830-1914). Its library (80 000 volumes) as well as an immense collection of files are preserved at the Institute Scripps, both being opened to the researchers.

Its name was given to five kinds and twenty-two species of fish, a kind of lichen, a species of birds, two mollusc species, a crab species, three species of cavernicolous arthropods, two species of insects, three species of alga, a species of lichen, a whale and a lake drained in Nevada.

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