Theodore Wells Pietsch III

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Theodore Wells Pietsch III
ThPietsch2014.jpg
Theodore Wells Pietsch, 2014
BornMarch 6, 1945 (1945-03-06) (age 78)
Royal Oak, Michigan
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of Michigan (BA)
University of Southern California (MS, PhD)
AwardsRobert H. Gibbs Jr. Memorial Award
Scientific career
Fields zoology
Institutions University of Washington,
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Academic advisors Arnold G. Kluge, Basil G. Nafpaktitis, Karel F. Liem

Theodore Wells Pietsch III (born March 6, 1945) is an American systematist and evolutionary biologist especially known for his studies of anglerfishes. Pietsch has described 72 species and 14 genera of fishes and published numerous scientific papers focusing on the relationships, evolutionary history, and functional morphology of teleosts, particularly deep-sea taxa. For this body of work, Pietsch was awarded the Robert H. Gibbs Jr. Memorial Award in Systematic Ichthyology by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 2005. Pietsch has spent most of his career at the University of Washington in Seattle as a professor mentoring graduate students, teaching ichthyology to undergraduates, and curating the ichthyology collections of the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.

Contents

His zoological author abbreviation is Pietsch. [1]

Education

Pietsch attended John Adams High School in Indiana. After a B.A. in zoology at the University of Michigan he did a M.S. and Ph.D. in biology at the University of Southern California. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 1973 to 1975. Pietsch taught at California State University at Long beach from 1975 to 1978 and the University of Washington from 1978 until his retirement in July 2015.

Academic research

Pietsch has named 72 species and 14 genera of fishes, most of them lophiiform taxa, both living and extinct, including the recently described Psychedelic Frogfish, Histiophryne psychedelica . [2] He is recognized as an expert on the evolution, ecology, and behavior of both shallow-water anglerfishes (e.g., frogfishes) and deep-sea anglerfishes of the suborder Ceratioidei. Perhaps his most intriguing work has focused on the evolution of sexual parasitism in deep-sea anglerfishes, a reproductive strategy in which a tiny dwarf male attaches and fuses to a much larger female. [3] With his studies of the evolutionary relationships of anglerfish species, Pietsch has determined that this reproductive mode may have evolved as many as five times within deep-sea anglerfishes. [3] [4]

A number of taxa have been named in his honor: a coelenterate parasite, Hydrichthys pietschi ; a cottid, Icelinus pietschi ; a caristiid, Platyberyx pietschi ; a myrocongrid eel, Myroconger pietschi ; a fossil percomorph family, Pietschellidae, and genus and species, Pietschellus aenigmaticus ; and the anglerfishes Caulophryne pietschi , Kuiterichthys pietschi , Oneirodes pietschi , Oneirodes parapietschi , and Pietschichthys horridus . [5]

Published works

T. W. Pietsch is the author of over 250 scientific and popular articles, [6] including 20 books, that focus primarily on marine ichthyology, especially the biosystematics, zoogeography, reproductive biology, and behavior of deep-sea fishes. He has also published extensively on the history of science, especially the history of ichthyology. Among the latter are works on the French comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier and his 22-volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (1828−1849); bookdealer, publisher, and secret agent Louis Renard and his Fishes, Crayfishes, and Crabs; the unpublished manuscripts of the French explorer-naturalist Charles Plumier; and the unpublished paintings of Indo-west Pacific marine fishes and crustaceans of Isaac Johannes Lamotius. His first novel, The Curious Death of Peter Artedi: A Mystery in the History of Science, was published by Scott & Nix, New York, in December 2010. Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution, Johns Hopkins University Press, was published in 2012; annotated, illustrated, English translations of the first three volumes of Cuvier’s five-volume Histoire des Sciences Naturelles, depuis leur Origine jusqu’a nos Jours, Publications Scientifiques du Muséum and Bibliothèque Centrale, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, were published in 2012, 2015, and 2018, respectively; and Frogfishes: Biodiversity, Zoogeography, and Behavioral Ecology (with Rachel J. Arnold) and Cuvier’s Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology, from Its Origins to Our Own Time (second edition) in 2020. Hur dog Peter Artedi? [“How did Peter Artedi Die?”], translated from the English by Hans Aili, Ekström & Garay, Lund, Sweden; and Ichthyopedia: A Biographical Dictionary of Ichthyologists, American Philosophical Society, were published in 2023.

Selected bibliography

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. "Australian Faunal Directory: Gigantactis meadi". biodiversity.org.au. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
  2. "Pietsch TW, Arnold RJ, Hall DJ (2008). "A bizarre new species of frogfish of the genus Histiophryne (Lophiiformes: Antennariidae) from Ambon and Bali". Copeia. 2008 (1): 37–45. doi:10.1643/CI-08-129. S2CID   83903760.
  3. 1 2 Pietsch TW (2005). "Dimorphism, parasitism, and sex revisited: modes of reproduction among deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes)". Ichthyological Research. 52 (3): 207–236. doi:10.1007/s10228-005-0286-2. S2CID   24768783.
  4. Pietsch TW, Orr JW (2007). "Phylogenetic Relationships of Deep-sea Anglerfishes of the Suborder Ceratioidei (Teleostei: Lophiiformes) Based on Morphology". Copeia. 2007 (1): 1–34. doi:10.1643/0045-8511(2007)7[1:PRODAO]2.0.CO;2.
  5. Theodore W. Pietsch (C.V. and bibliography of recent publications) from the Burke Museum
  6. Theodore W. Pietsch (CV and bibliography of recent publications) from the Burke Museum
  7. Gilbert, Carter R. (1 August 1996). "Review: Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology, from Its Origins to Our Own Time by Georges Cuvier, ed. by Theodore W. Pietsch, trans. by Abby J. Simpson". Copeia (3): 752–754. doi:10.2307/1447546. JSTOR   1447546.
  8. Burr, Brooks M. (18 February 1997). "Review: Fishes, Crayfishes, and Crabs: Louis Renard and His Natural History of the Rarest Curiosities of the Seas of the Indies ed. by Theodore W. Pietsch". Copeia: 241–243. doi:10.2307/1447871. JSTOR   1447871.