William Blaney Richardson

William Blaney Richardson (19 March 1868, in Boston, Massachusetts – 1 December 1927, in Matagalpa, Nicaragua) was an American-Nicaraguan naturalist and professional collector of zoological specimens.[1]

As a young man, Richardson was employed by Charles B. Cory to collect bird specimens in the West Indies.[1][2]

While collecting specimens in Mexico, Richardson married the Mexican citizen Rosaura Ojeda. When he and his wife moved to Nicaragua, he changed his middle name from "Blaney" to "Blaine".[3]

... he was part of the expedition to Nicaragua in 1908 and another to Ecuador in 1912. In fact, he collected in Nicaragua many times; in 1891 he settled in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, to grow coffee, and stayed on for the rest of his life. He took part in the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition to Brazil of 1913–1914, and on another expedition to Ecuador in 1916 he collected for the American Museum of Natural History and the Academy of Sciences of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.[1]

In southwestern Colombia from November 1910 to July 1911 and from August 1912 to October 1912, Richardson collected many mammalian specimens.[4]

One of his daughters married Francisco Navarro, Vice President of Nicaragua from 1937 to 1939, and one of grandsons, Bill Richardson, was Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011.

Richardson is commemorated in the scientific names of the rodents Microhydromys richardsoni (northern groove-toothed shrew mouse or Richardson's shrew mouse)[1] and Rattus richardsoni (glacier rat or Richardson's mountain rat)[1]

References
  1. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2009). Eponym Dictionary of Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 340. ISBN 978-0-8018-9304-9. The two mammalian species names for Richardson's mountain rat and Richardson's shrew mouse are associated with the mammalogist William Bebb Richardson.
  2. Cory, Charles B. (April 1887). "A List of the Birds Collected by Mr. W. B. Richardson, in the Island of Martinique, West Indies". The Auk. 4 (2): 95–96. doi:10.2307/4067107.
  3. RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Gary Allen Richardson Ancestry
  4. List of Mammals Collected in Colombia by the American Museum of Natural History Expeditions, 1910–1915 by J. A. Allen
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