Pierce Brodkorb

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Pierce Brodkorb (born September 29, 1908 in Chicago, Illinois, died July 18, 1992 in Gainesville, Florida), also stated as William Pierce Brodkorb was an American ornithologist and paleontologist.

Interested in birds since childhood he was tought to prepare birds at the age of 16. Later he received the opportuny to work as stuff technician in the Ornithology division of the Field Museum. He entered the University of Michigan in 1933 and obtained his PhD degree in 1936. Subsequently he became an assistant curator of birds at the Museum of Zoology in Michigan until 1946. In 1946 he accepted a professorate in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida in Gainesville which he hold until his retirement in 1989.

From the 1950s Brodkorb built up a huge collection of bird fossils from the Miocene, the Pliocene, and the Pleistocene of Florida which included 12,500 skeletons from 129 families and is on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History which is part of the University of Florida. From 1963 to 1978 he published the Catalogue of Fossil Birds in five volumes. In 1982 he became an honorary member of the Florida Ornithological Society.

Brodkorb described several prehistoric bird genera like Alexornis or Titanis for the first time. Taxa like Paraptenodytes brodkorbi, Aegolius acadicus brodkorbi, Empidonax fulvifrons brodkorbi, and Henocitta brodkorbi were named in his honour.

[edit] External links

• In memoriam: Pierce Brodkorb
• Obituary by Storrs L. Olson
• Catalogue of fossil birds - Online