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Antoon Emeric Marcel De Roo (born 26 August 1936 in Roeselare; died 25 February 1971) was a Belgian ornithologist.
De Roo was already scientifically active before he received his licentiate in biology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1959. Together with his friend Paul Houwen he observed the swift colonies of Roeselare during his student days. In 1954 he became an employee at the Belgian Bird Ringing Center, where he mainly focused on the marking, measurement and examination of moulting birds.
His great interest in the birds of Central Africa brought him in 1962 in contact with Henri Schouteden. This encouraged him in his research and enabled him to study the very extensive ornithological collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. He devoted himself above all to the geography and systematics of birds, especially the swift family (Apodidae).
After his military service he went to the Republic of the Congo for three years (1962–1965) as part of development aid, where he participated in the Belgian bird ringing program in Luluabourg (now Kananga). During this time he and Jan Deheegher marked 6,310 birds for the Belgian Vogelberingzentrale, including 648 specimens of 20 palaearctic species and 5,662 specimens of 100 paleotropic species. The results of this ringing action were published in 1965 together with those of Antoon Frans De Bont under the title "Resultats du beguage d'oiseaux en Republique Democratique du Congo et en Republique du Rwanda (1959 à 1965)" in the magazine Le Gerfaut: De Giervalk.
From 1962 to 1971 he was a research assistant at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. From May 1968 to 1971 he was a research assistant at the Laboratory for General Zoology at the University of Antwerp, where he mainly devoted himself to the ornithology of Africa. In 1968 he took part in one of the three Belgian Togo expeditions led by Walter Verheyen. The systematic and geographical analysis of the rich bird collection gathered on these trips was published by him in four papers in the journal Revue de Zoölogie et de Botanique Africaines.
In 1969 he co-authored the studies Contribution a l'Ornithologie de la Republique du Togo and Contribution a l'etude des chiropteres de la Republique du Togo alongside Walter Verheyen and Frits De Vree.
In 1967 De Roo described the Prigogine's greenbul ( Chlorocichla prigoginei) and in 1970 the subspecies Apus barbatus serlei of the African black swift. In 1968 he set up the class of scarce swift, Schoutedenapus .
In 1970, the parasitologist Alex Fain described the mite species Knemidokoptes derooi , which causes beak mange in the African palm swift. In 1972 Jan L. J. Hulselmans honored De Roo in the species epithet of the frog species Conraua derooi . In 1975 Alexandre Prigogine named the subspecies Cyanomitra alinae derooi of the blue-headed sunbird after De Roo. In 1978 Erik Van der Straeten and Walter Verheyen described Deroo's mouse ( Praomys derooi).
The following is a timeline of ornithology events:
The African grey woodpecker is a species of bird in the woodpecker family Picidae. Is a widespread and frequently common resident breeder in much of Sub-Saharan and equatorial Africa. It is a species associated with forest and bush which nests in a tree hole, often in an oil palm, laying two to four eggs. It is a common bird with a very wide range, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".
Michel Louette is a Belgian ornithologist and author. He is the head of the Department of Ornithology at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, in Tervuren, Belgium. He has described five bird species new to science: three from the Democratic Republic of Congo, one from Liberia and one from the Comoros archipelago. Louette has written several books on ornithology including The Birds of Katanga published in 2010 by the Royal Museum for Central Africa.
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally built to showcase King Leopold II's Congo Free State in the International Exposition of 1897.
The hair-crested drongo is an Asian bird of the family Dicruridae. This species was formerly considered conspecific with Dicrurus bracteatus, for which the name "spangled drongo" – formerly used for both – is now usually reserved. Some authorities include the Sumatran drongo in D. hottentottus as subspecies.
The brimstone canary or bully canary is a small passerine bird in the finch family. It is a resident breeder in central and southern Africa.
Conraua derooi is a species of frog in the family Conrauidae. It is found in Togo and Ghana. Common name Togo slippery frog has been coined for this species. Even feared to be extinct, a few populations were found in surveys in 2005–2007, after the species had gone unrecorded for more than 20 years.
Prigogine's greenbul is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is found only in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The olive-green camaroptera is a bird species in the family Cisticolidae.
The black-backed cisticola or black-necked cisticola is a species of passerine bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in Burkina Faso, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry lowland grassland and subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland.
The yellow-crested helmetshrike or King Albert's helmetshrike is a species of bird in the Vanga family Vangidae. This large, striking helmetshrike is unique in its black plumage and bright yellow crest. Though this species has been encountered broadly across the mountains of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, there is still much to learn about this species. It is rarely reported due to the majority of its distribution occurring in relatively remote regions within the Albertine Rift, an area with ongoing armed conflict.
The square-tailed saw-wing, also known as the square-tailed rough-winged swallow is a species of bird in the family Hirundinidae. It is found in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
The least honeyguide is a small species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa.
The smoky-brown woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.
Walter's duiker is a species of duiker found in Togo, Benin and Nigeria. It was described in 2010. Its name commemorates Professor Walter Verheyen, who was the first to obtain a specimen of this species of duiker from Togo in 1968.
Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at fr:Gaston-François de Witte; see its history for attribution.
Beryl Patricia Hall, née Woodhouse was a British ornithologist, associated with the Natural History Museum. She is best known for her work on African birds. She also wrote a book of whimsical poems with Derek Goodwin called the Bird Room Ballads (1969).
Alexandre Romanovich Prigogine was a Belgian mineralogist and ornithologist of Russian-Jewish origin.
Michael Patrick Stuart Irwin was a British-Rhodesian ornithologist.
Jali Makawa was a Mozambique-born bird expert who assisted the British ornithologist C.W. "Con" Benson. He also worked with other ornithologists and collectors in east Africa including Melvin Traylor, Arthur Loveridge, Charles Sibley, and Michael Irwin. Makawa was famed for his observational skills, ability to identify novel species, mimic bird calls, collect, and prepare specimens. Several subspecies and a species of bird that he collected have been named after him.
