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{{short description|American mammalogist}}
{{distinguish|Philip Herschkowitz}}
[[File:Philip Hershkovitz 1.jpg|thumb|circa 1962, FMNH archives and PH files]]
'''Philip Hershkovitz''' (12 October 1909 – 15 February 1997) was an American [[mammalogy|mammalogist]]. Born in [[Pittsburgh]], he attended the Universities of Pittsburgh and Michigan and lived in South America collecting mammals. In 1947, he was appointed a [[curator]] at the [[Field Museum of Natural History]] in Chicago and he continued to work there until his death. He
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===Early life===
Philip Hershkovitz was born on 12 October 1909 in [[Pittsburgh]] to parents Aba and Bertha (Halpern) Hershkovitz. He was the second child and only son among four siblings. He reported that his father died when he was nine years old. After graduating from [[Schenley High School]] in 1927,<ref name=Patterson1988/> he attended the [[University of Pittsburgh]] from 1929 to 1931, majoring in [[zoology]], before transferring to the [[University of Michigan at Ann Arbor]], which had more course offerings in zoology. He was an assistant in the zoology department and did [[taxidermy|taxidermical]] work. In 1932, he went to Texas to collect ''[[Typhlomolge rathbuni]]'' cave salamanders. He wanted to also trap small mammals, which he found more interesting, but had no traps to do that. On a chance visit to the [[Field Museum of Natural History]] (FMNH) in Chicago, he befriended the Curator of Mammals there, [[Colin Campbell Sanborn]], who loaned him the supplies he needed. This event was the beginning of Hershkovitz's long relationship with the FMNH.<ref name=Patterson1987/>
As the [[Great Depression]] worsened, Hershkovitz was no longer able to afford life in Michigan, and in 1933 he decided to move to [[Ecuador]], which he was told was one of the cheapest countries in the Americas to live in. He collected a number of mammal specimens and learned to speak Spanish, supporting himself in part by trading in horses. He returned in 1937 and again enrolled at Ann Arbor, graduating in 1938. Subsequently, he became a graduate student there and got his [[master's degree|MSc]] degree in 1940. He then entered the doctoral program, but in 1941 he was awarded a Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship by the [[United States National Museum]] in Washington, D.C., to work in the [[Santa Marta]] area of northern Colombia, where he stayed till 1943.<ref name=Patterson1987/>
Hershkovitz enlisted in the U.S. Armed Services during World War II and served the [[Office of Strategic Services]] in Europe. In
===Curator at the Field Museum===
In 1947, Hershkovitz was offered a position as Assistant Curator of Mammals at the FMNH and accepted, although it meant that he was unable to complete his doctoral studies. He immediately went back to the field and stayed in Colombia until his curatorial duties called him back to Chicago in 1952. His Colombian collections remained at the center of his research interests afterward, as he entirely revised many [[taxon|taxa]] of which he had found representatives in Colombia.<ref name=Patterson1987/>
He had a good relationship with Chief Curator of the Department of Zoology [[Karl P. Schmidt]] and actively took care of his curatorial duties (appointed Associate Curator in 1954 and full Curator in 1956). Schmidt retired in 1957 and his successor, [[Austin P. Rand]], enjoyed a less positive relation with Hershkovitz, and the latter detached himself from the
===Retirement and death===
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==Research==
{{see also|:Category:Taxa named by Philip Hershkovitz}}
Hershkovitz published extensively on the biology of each of the twelve [[order (biology)|orders]] of Neotropical mammals, focusing generally on [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomy]] and [[biogeography]]. He wrote 164 papers, including both broad [[monograph]]s and smaller contributions, and described 67 new species and subspecies and 13 new [[genera]].<ref name=Patterson1997/> He was an independent researcher, writing most of his contributions alone; only three he co-authored with other scientists. He participated in some fiery scientific debates, with views that according to Patterson's biographical note "brand him as something other than conciliatory or diplomatic".<ref name=Patterson1987/> In 1968, he published his theory of [[metachromism]], which attempts to explain variation in fur coloration among mammals through the loss of one of two classes of [[pigment]]s in the hairs.<ref name=Patterson1987/>
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One of Hershkovitz's first papers was on rodents, describing two new Ecuadorean squirrels in 1938, and he continued to publish about the group, including reviews of ''[[Nectomys]]'', ''[[Oecomys]]'', [[Phyllotini]], ''[[Holochilus]]'', and [[Scapteromyini|scapteromyines]] between 1944 and 1966.<ref name=Patterson1987/> He played an important role in formalizing and defining the [[tribe (biology)|tribal]] groups within the [[Sigmodontinae|sigmodontine]] rodents of South America.<ref name=CarletonMusser1989/> However, his contributions at the time have been cited as examples of "vague notions of clade recognition",<ref name=Weksler2006/> "phylogenetic transcendentalism" unsubstantiated by data, and "[misleading simplification] of a complex reality".<ref name=Musseretal1998/> He was engaged in discussions on the significance of penis morphology in sigmodontines and on their origin.<ref name=Patterson1987/> Over eighty years old, he resumed studies of rodents in Brazil and discovered many additional new species.<ref name=Patterson1997/> Shortly after his death, head of the FMNH's mammal division [[Lawrence Heaney]] said "The information he gathered was the basis for much of the conservation planning that's being done now in most of the major habitats in South America."<ref name="Chicago Sun-Times"/>
In 1966, he published a ''Catalog of Living Whales''; he had originally intended to review the whales living off the South American coast, but expanded the project to all the world's species. This ''Catalog'' remains an invaluable resource for any student of cetaceans who needs to know the meaning of some obscure old name and has been called "a taxonomic Rosetta Stone". Although Hershkovitz was not a marine mammalogist, a brief obituary on him appeared in ''Marine Mammals Science'' in 1998.<ref name=Heyning1998/> He treated many other mammals in his publications, including reviews of marsupials such as ''[[Gracilinanus]]'', ''[[Philander (
==Honors==
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<ref name=CarletonMusser1989>{{cite journal|vauthors=Carleton MD, Musser GG |year=1989|title=Systematic studies of oryzomyine rodents (Muridae, Sigmodontinae): a synopsis of ''Microryzomys''|journal=Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History|volume=191|pages=1–83}}</ref>
<ref name="Chicago Sun-Times">{{cite news |title=Philip Hershkovitz, 87, former museum curator |newspaper=Chicago Sun-Times |date=21 February 1997
<ref name=Fooden1997a>{{cite journal |author=Fooden J. |year=1997a |title=Death Notice: Philip Hershkovitz (1909–1997) |journal=American Journal of Primatology |volume=43 |page=79
<ref name=Fooden1997b>{{cite journal|author=Fooden J.|year=1997b|title=Obituary: Philip Hershkovitz (1909–1997)|journal=International Journal of Primatology|volume=18|issue=3|pages=301–303|doi=10.1023/A:1026326231152|s2cid=28540475|doi-access=free}}</ref>
<ref name=Heyning1998>{{cite journal |author=Heyning JE. |year=1998 |title=Philip Hershkovitz 1909–1997 |journal=Marine Mammal Science |volume=14 |issue=1 |page=203 |doi=10.1111/j.1748-7692.1998.tb00710.x}}</ref>
<ref name=Luchterhandetal1986>{{cite journal|vauthors=Luchterhand K, Kay RF, Madden RH |year=1986|title=''Mohanamico herskovitzi'' gen. et sp. nov., a middle Miocene South American primate|journal=Comptes
<ref name=Martinetal2002>{{cite journal|doi=10.1671/0272-4634(2002)022[0137:LNLHRF]2.0.CO;2|vauthors=Martin RA, Goodwin HT, Farlow JO |year=2002|title=Late Neogene (Late Hemphillian) rodents from the Pipe Creek sinkhole, Grant County, Indiana|journal=Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology|volume=22|issue=1|pages=137–151}}</ref>
<ref name=Musseretal1998>{{cite journal|vauthors=Musser GG, Carleton MD, Brothers EM, Gardner AL |year=1998|
<ref name=MusserCarleton2005>{{cite book|vauthors=Musser GG, Carleton MD |year=2005|chapter=Superfamily Muroidea|page=1089|veditors=Wilson DE, Reeder DM |url=http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3|title=Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and
<ref name=Patterson1987>{{cite journal|author=Patterson BD.|year=1987|title=A biographical sketch of Philip Hershkovitz, with a complete scientific bibliography|journal=Fieldiana Zoology|volume=39|pages=1–10|url=
<ref name=Patterson1988>{{cite journal |author=Patterson BD. |year=1988 |title=A celebration of Philip Hershkovitz. Emeritus curator of mammals |journal=Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages= 24–29 |url=
<ref name=Patterson1997>{{cite journal |author=Patterson BD. |year=1997 |title=Philip Hershkovitz: 1909–1997 |journal=Journal of Mammalogy |volume=78 |issue=3 |pages=978–81 |jstor=1382958 | doi = 10.2307/jmammal/78.3.978 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
<ref name=PattersonTimm1987>{{cite journal |veditors=Patterson BD, Timm RM |year=1987|title=Studies in Neotropical Mammalogy: Essays in honor of Philip M. Hershkovitz|journal=Fieldiana Zoology|volume=39|pages=1–506|url=
<ref name=Reig1994>{{cite journal|url=
<ref name=Weksler2006>{{cite journal|author=Weksler M.|year=2006|
}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hershkovitz, Philip}}
[[Category:American mammalogists]]
[[Category:American taxonomists]]
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1997 deaths]]
[[Category:University of Pittsburgh alumni]]▼
[[Category:University of Michigan alumni]]
[[Category:
[[Category:20th-century American
[[Category:People associated with the Field Museum of Natural History]]
[[Category:20th-century American botanists]]
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