Donald C. Taphorn

Last updated
Donald C. Taphorn
Born
Donald Charles Taphorn Baechle

(1951-09-08) September 8, 1951 (age 74)
Belleville, Illinois, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (B.Sc.)
University of Florida (M.Sc., Ph.D.)
Known forTaxonomy of South American freshwater fishes
Scientific career
Fields Ichthyology
Institutions Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora
Author abbrev. (botany) Taphorn

Donald Charles Taphorn (born September 8, 1951), sometimes cited as Don Taphorn, Donald C. Taphorn B. or Donald C. Taphorn Baechle, is an American ichthyologist. [1]

Contents

Biography

Taphorn is the eldest of five children of Donald Clement Taphorn and Shirley Jean Taphorn (née Baechle). He attended Catholic elementary school and high school in Belleville. His interest in fish began with the gift of a goldfish from his grandmother. As an enthusiastic aquarist, he maintained several aquaria with tropical fish in his basement during his youth. [2] [3]

In 1972 he received a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) and won the Outstanding Senior Award from the Department of Biology. One of his professors, Jamie E. Thomerson (1935–2015), fostered his interest in the taxonomy of tropical fishes of South America, particularly the seasonal fishes of the family Rivulidae. [2] [3]

He pursued graduate studies with Carter R. Gilbert (1930–2022) at the Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, where he earned a Master of Science degree in 1976 with his thesis A systematic revision of the genera Rachovia Myers and Austrofundulus Myers. [2] [3]

From 1976 to 1977, he worked for the Venezuelan Ministry of the Environment on a biological control project in Lake Maracaibo with Craig Lilyestrom, attempting to use predatory fishes to control malaria-transmitting Anopheles mosquitoes. He subsequently taught systematic ichthyology at the Universidad del Zulia in Maracaibo for a year. [2] [3]

In 1978, Taphorn moved to Guanare, Portuguesa, Venezuela, joining the recently founded Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora  [ es ] (UNELLEZ). In 1979 he became a faculty member in the Department of Environmental Engineering. At UNELLEZ he founded the natural history museum “BioCentro” and the fish collection, serving as its curator to the present day, and until 2007 also as its director. The collection is regarded as one of the best organized in South America and contains nearly 50,000 specimens, fully catalogued in computerized databases. In 1989, Taphorn became coordinator of the graduate program in wildlife and fisheries management, jointly developed by UNELLEZ and the International Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1990, under the supervision of Carter R. Gilbert, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Florida with the dissertation The characiform fishes of the Apure River drainage, Venezuela. [2] [3]

Taphorn retired in 2007 and returned to the United States, but he remains active in ichthyological research. His bibliography includes about 100 scientific publications, most in the taxonomy of Venezuelan freshwater fishes and the effects of human activities on aquatic ecosystems. He is a co-author of the descriptions of about 100 fish species, as well as the gecko species Lepidoblepharis montecanoensis (Markezich & Taphorn, 1994). [2] [3]

Eponymous taxa

Species named after him include the fishes Creagrutus taphorni (Vari & Harold, 2001), Farlowella taphorni (Retzer & Page, 1997), Hemigrammus taphorni (Benine & Lopes, 2007), Hyphessobrycon taphorni (García-Alzate, Román-Valencia & Ortega, 2013), Hypostomus taphorni (Lilyestrom, 1984), Lebiasina taphorni (Ardila Rodríguez, 2004), Myloplus taphorni (Andrade, López-Fernández & Liverpool, 2019), Phenacorhamdia taphorni (DoNascimiento & Milani, 2008), Sternarchorhynchus taphorni (de Santana & Vari, 2010), and the snake Atractus taphorni (Schargel & García-Pérez, 2002).

Species described by Donald C. Taphorn

Taphorn is the author or co-author of the descriptions of numerous fish taxa, including:

References

  1. ↑ Prof. Donald Charles Taphorn Baechle (portrait and publications)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Donald C. Taphorn: Biographical Sketch. In: The characiform fishes of the Apure River drainage, Venezuela. PhD dissertation, University of Florida, 1990, pp. 891–892
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson & Michael Watkins (2023). Eponym Dictionary of Fishes. Whittles Publishing. ISBN 978-1849954983.
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