The Pinchot South Sea Expedition [1] was a 1929 zoological expedition to the Caribbean and South Pacific led and financed by Gifford Pinchot. [2] [3]
The expedition departed from New York City on 31 March 1929 aboard the Pinchots' yacht Mary Pinchot. Gifford Pinchot organized, financed, and led the expedition, which collected zoological specimens (and a few botanical specimens) for the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. [3] The captain was Frederick A. Brown of Port Jefferson, New York, [4] and the chief engineer was Henry Christensen. [3] Aboard ship, besides the captain and crew, were Gifford Pinchot, his wife and fellow conservationist Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, their son Gifford Pinchot, Jr. (1916–1989), and Pinchot Jr.'s schoolmate Steve Stahlnecker. [5] The expedition's photographer was Howard H. Cleaves, and its physician was J. B. Mathewson. The expedition's professional scientists were the malacologist Henry A. Pilsbry and the ornithologists A. K. Fisher and Alexander Wetmore. Harry A. Slattery accompanied the expedition from New York City to Panama. The yacht Mary Pinchot visited Key West (for a few days undergoing minor yacht repairs) and then Havana (for a one-day tourist trip). The expedition then visited Grand Cayman, the Swan Islands, Isla de Providencia and Isla de San Andrés for collecting specimens. The Mary Pinchot went through the Panama Canal and then to Cocos Island. The expedition collected in the Galápagos, Marquesas, and Tuamotus. The expedition reached its final destination, Tahiti, on October 15. Before the end of October, Pinchot's party departed Tahiti and then returned by steamer to San Francisco. By early November, Pinchot and his family were in Washington, D.C. Captain Brown and the crew of the Mary Pinchot went back through the Panama Canal and arrived at the yacht's winter station at Savannah, Georgia in December 1929. [3]
Howard Cleaves documented the expedition with a motion picture film that was shown in movie theaters throughout the United States. [6] Cornelia Bryce Pinchot gave free talks with showings of Cleaves's documentary film. [7]
Mordaunt Hall, a 1930s movie critic, wrote concerning Cleaves's film:
There are amazing scenes of natives jumping into the crystal waters, harpoon in hand, to land on the backs of the enormous sea bats. After plunging the weapon in them, they swim away and climb back over the boat's side. There are views of the San Bias Indians, of enormous land turtles, iguanas, sea tigers and Man-O'-War hawks. [8]
The expedition brought back several living reptiles:
Hon. Gifford Pinchot, who cruised the Pacific on a notable expedition, brought home with him for the National Zoological Park a specimen of the almost extinct Duncan Island tortoise, a Hood Island tortoise, four Albemarle tortoises, and three land iguanas, all from the Galapagos. These are very important additions and make the collection of giant tortoises one of the finest. [9]
On Isla de Providencia, the expedition discovered a new lizard species, which Doris Cochran named Anolis pinchoti . [10] [11] [12]
The expedition discovered the fish species Entomacrodus corneliae, which Henry Fowler named Giffordella corneliae. [13] [14]
The expedition's malacologist Pilsbry identified several new mollusk species, including the genus Giffordius (two species) and Chionopsis pinchoti. [15] Pilsbry's claim of a new species Drymaeus pinchoti is rejected in favor of the subspecies Drymaeus rufescens pinchoti; Codakia pinchoti is rejected in favor of Codakia distinguenda. [16]
A. K. Fisher and Alexander Wetmore, with the assistance of Pinchot Sr. and Jr., collected approximately 500 bird skins and skeletons and a few eggs; Fisher made detailed field notes. [17]
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on either side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador. Located 906 km (563 mi) west of continental Ecuador, the islands are known for their large number of endemic species that were studied by Charles Darwin during the second voyage of HMS Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
Gifford Pinchot was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Republican Party for most of his life, though he joined the Progressive Party for a brief period.
Leonhard Hess Stejneger was a Norwegian-born American ornithologist, herpetologist and zoologist. Stejneger specialized in vertebrate natural history studies. He gained his greatest reputation with reptiles and amphibians.
Rollo Howard Beck was an American ornithologist, bird collector for museums, and explorer. Beck's petrel and three taxa of reptiles are named after him, including a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise, Chelonoidis nigra becki from Volcán Wolf. A recent paper by Fellers examines all the known taxa named for Beck. Beck was recognized for his extraordinary ability as a field worker by Robert Cushman Murphy as being "in a class by himself," and by University of California at Berkeley professor of zoology Frank Pitelka as "the field worker" of his generation.
Frank Alexander Wetmore was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Henry Augustus Pilsbry was an American biologist, malacologist and carcinologist, among other areas of study. He was a dominant presence in many fields of invertebrate taxonomy for the better part of a century. For much of his career, his authority with respect to the classification of certain substantial groups of organisms was unchallenged: barnacles, chitons, North American terrestrial mollusks, and others.
Edgar Albert Smith was a British zoologist, a malacologist.
Bulimulidae is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to large, air-breathing, tropical and sub-tropical land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Orthalicoidea.
Giffordius is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Polygyridae.
Arthur Loveridge was a British biologist and herpetologist who wrote about animals in East Africa, particularly Tanzania, and New Guinea. He gave scientific names to several gecko species in the region.
Anolis cristatellus is a small species of anole, belonging to the Dactyloidae family of reptiles, which is native to Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, with introduced populations in locations around the Caribbean. The males of A. cristatellus are easily recognizable by the fin running down the top of the tail, which is known as a "caudal crest". The females also have these crests, but these are smaller than those of the males. It is often quite common in many areas on Puerto Rico, where it can be seen during the day passing the time on the lower parts of tree trunks, or on fences and the walls of buildings in urban areas, sometimes venturing down onto the ground in order to lay eggs, have a snack, or do other cursorial activities. Like many anoles, this species displays the characteristic behaviour of doing push-ups as well as inflating a pizza-like flap of coloured skin on their throat, known as a dewlap, in order to show others how hip they are, and thus attract mates or intimidate rivals.
Hyperaulax ridleyi is a species of tropical air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Odontostomidae.
Henry Carsten Kellers was an American United States Navy Lieutenant Commander who served on numerous scientific expeditions on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. During his expeditionary career, he collected biological specimens for the Smithsonian, bringing back over 10,000 specimens, living and deceased, many which were held by the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Mario Giacinto Peracca was an Italian herpetologist.
Albert Kenrick Fisher was an American ornithologist, known for his 1893 book The Hawks and Owls of the United States in Their Relation to Agriculture.
Cornelia Elizabeth Bryce Pinchot, also known as “Leila Pinchot,” was a 20th-century American conservationist, Progressive politician, and women’s rights activist who played a key role in the improvement of Grey Towers, the Pinchot family estate in Milford, Pennsylvania, which was donated to the U.S. Forest Service in 1963 and then designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. A maternal great-granddaughter of Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union, and daughter of U.S. Congressman and Envoy Lloyd Stephens Bryce (1851–1917), she was the wife of Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), the renowned conservationist and two-time Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and was also a close friend of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.