- William Orville Ayres
William Orville Ayres (
September 11 ,1817 -April 30 ,1887 ) was an Americanphysician andichthyologist . Born inConnecticut , he studied to become a doctor atYale University School of Medicine .Ayres was also interested in
natural science , however, particularly inornithology . He became friends with famed ornithologist and painterJohn James Audubon , who named awoodpecker (now called theNorthern Flicker ) after him, mentioning him by name in his "Birds of America "::I have named this handsome bird after my young and learned friend W. O. AYRES, Esq., who is well known to science as an excellent ichthyologist; and who also is well conversant with the birds of our country. [ [http://www.audubon.org/bird/boa/NSk.html Missouri Red-moustached Woodpecker ] ]
As the first Curator of Ichthyology of the
California Academy of Sciences [http://www.calacademy.org/membership/membership.php] , Ayres wrote several many papers on the fish ofCalifornia , despite poor facilities. In a letter to a colleague at theSmithsonian Institution Ayers pled for support for the fledgling academy::I am working along here in the dark as well as I can, with almost nothing in the way of books or means of reference, and what mistakes I make, some of you more advantageously situated must correct. [ [http://www.calacademy.org/calwild/2003spring/stories/earlyyears.html California Wild Spring 2003 - Science Amid the Saloons ] ]
Since there were no established
scientific journals available, he turned to local newspapers to publish his descriptions of fish. [ [http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/150/ichthyology.html California Academy of Sciences - 150th Anniversary Celebration ] ]In 1882 Ayres wrote an article in "The American Naturalist", "The Ancient Man of Calaveras" about the
Calaveras Skull , a human skull purported at the time to have been found in a mine inCalaveras County, California . He defended the claim that the skull was indeed of ancient origin. That the skull was of ancient provenance is now generally believed to have been a hoax.Ayres's name (cited in Latin as "ayresii") is used in the
binomial name s of several species ofbird s andfish .References
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