Waldo L. Schmitt
Encyclopedia
Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (1887–1977) was an American biologist born in Washington, D.C.
He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University
in 1922. In 1948, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Southern California
. Schmitt's primary field of zoological investigation was carcinology, with special emphasis on the decapod
crustacean
s (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and so on). His bibliography consists of more than seventy titles.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
in 1922. In 1948, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. Schmitt's primary field of zoological investigation was carcinology, with special emphasis on the decapod
Decapoda
The decapods or Decapoda are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp. Most decapods are scavengers. It is estimated that the order contains nearly 15,000 species in around 2,700 genera, with...
crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and so on). His bibliography consists of more than seventy titles.
Biography
- He was married to Alvina Stumm.
- Schmitt was an Aide in Economic Botany for the United States Department of AgricultureUnited States Department of AgricultureThe United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
(1907–1910) - Appointed Scientific Aide in the Division of Marine Invertebrates of the United States National Museum
- Studied Crustacea with Mary Jane Rathbun
- Served on the staff of the United States Bureau of Fisheries as Scientific Assistant
- Naturalist aboard the Albatross (1911–1914)
- Assistant Curator at the United States National Museum as in the Division of Marine Invertebrates (1915–1920)
- Instructor of Zoology at George Washington UniversityGeorge Washington UniversityThe George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
(1917) - Named Curator of the Division of Marine Invertebrates (1920–1943)
- Head Curator of the Department of Biology (1943)
- Head Curator of Zoology (1943–1957)
- Honorary Research Associate and continued his association with the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
until his death on 5 August 1977.
Biological expeditions
- 1918 studying the life history of the spiny lobsterSpiny lobsterSpiny lobsters, also known as langouste or rock lobsters, are a family of about 45 species of achelate crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia...
at the Scripps InstitutionScripps-People:*Edward W. Scripps, a United States publisher and media financier*Ellen Browning Scripps, La Jolla, California philanthropist, half-sister of Edward W. Scripps...
, La Jolla, California. - 1924–1925, was at the Carnegie Institution's Marine Laboratory at Dry TortugasDry TortugasThe Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands, located at the end of the Florida Keys, USA, about west of Key West, and west of the Marquesas Keys, the closest islands. Still further west is the Tortugas Bank, which is completely submerged. The first Europeans to discover the islands were the...
, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, surveying the crustacean fauna of the area, identifying crustaceans found in the stomachs of fishes. - 1925, awarded the Smithsonian's Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship "for the study of the faunaFaunaFauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
of countries other than the United States." The scholarship enabled him to collect marineMarine (ocean)Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...
invertebrateInvertebrateAn invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
s along the east coast of South AmericaSouth AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. - 1927 Schmitt was aboard FleurusFleurusFleurus is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2006 Fleurus had a total population of 22,221. The total area is which gives a population density of 375 inhabitants per km²...
at Deception Island - 1933–1935, to the Galapagos IslandsGalápagos IslandsThe Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
sponsored by G. Allan Hancock of Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. - 1937, a guest of Huntington HartfordHuntington HartfordGeorge Huntington Hartford II was an American businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and art collector. The heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, he owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation...
, he explored and collected in the West Indies on the Smithsonian-Hartford West Indies Expedition. - 1938, accompanied President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
as naturalistNatural historyNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
on the Presidential Cruise to Clipperton IslandClipperton IslandClipperton Island is an uninhabited nine-square-kilometre coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean, southwest of Mexico and west of Central America, at...
, Cocos, and the Galapagos Islands. - 1939, member of the Hancock South America Expedition and
- 1940 Biologist in charge of field operations on the first United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceUnited States Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
AlaskaAlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
king crabKing crabKing crabs, also called stone crabs, are a superfamily of crab-like decapod crustaceans chiefly found in cold seas. Because of their large size and the taste of their meat, many species are widely caught and sold as food, the most common being the red king crab, Paralithodes camtschaticus.King...
investigation. - 1941–1942, on special detail with the United States Navy investigating the possibility of establishing a biological station in the Galapagos Islands.
- 1943, visited South America, under the auspices of the State Department, for the purpose of strengthening relations between United States and Latin American scientists.
- 1955, headed the Smithsonian-Bredin Belgian CongoBelgian CongoThe Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
Expedition. - 1956–1960 led Bredin sponsored expeditions to the CaribbeanCaribbeanThe Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
(1956, 1958, 1959), the Society IslandsSociety IslandsThe Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...
(1957), and the YucatanYucatánYucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
(1960). - 1961–1962 Sponsored by a grant from the Office of Naval Research, Schmitt spent the summers of with Harry Pederson photographing the coral reefCoral reefCoral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
fauna of the Bahamas Islands. - 1962–1963, his last expedition - member of the Survey of the United States AntarcticAntarcticThe Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
Research Program, the Staten Island cruise to Marguerite BayMarguerite BayMarguerite Bay or Margaret Bay is an extensive bay on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is bounded on the north by Adelaide Island and on the south by Wordie Ice Shelf, George VI Sound and Alexander Island. The mainland coast on the Antarctic Peninsula is Fallières Coast. Islands...
and Weddell SeaWeddell SeaThe Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is...
Participation in Scientific Societies
- Founding member of the Society of Systematic Zoology and served as president in 1948.
- President of the Washington Academy of Sciences in 1947.
- Trustee of the Bear's Bluff Laboratories,
- Trustee of the International Oceanographic Foundation
- Trustee of the Serological Museum of Rutgers University.
Legacy
- Camp Waldo Schmitt, located in Augusta, West VirginiaAugusta, West VirginiaAugusta is an unincorporated community in central Hampshire County, West Virginia. It is located along the Northwestern Turnpike at the northern terminus of Augusta-Ford Hill Road between Shanks and Pleasant Dale, east of Romney...
, is named in honor of Schmitt and his son, Waldo Earnest Schmitt. - A park in Takoma Park, MarylandTakoma Park, MarylandTakoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City," is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone...
bears his name. - A seminar room in the National Museum of Natural HistoryNational Museum of Natural HistoryThe National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
(Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
) bears his name. - Schmitt MesaSchmitt MesaSchmitt Mesa is a mesa in Antarctica named after Waldo L. Schmitt. It is a prominent, mainly ice-covered mesa, 15 mi long and 5 mi wide, forming the southern rampart of Latady Mountains at the base of Antarctic Peninsula....
in Antarctica.
External links
- Field Books of Waldo LaSalle Schmitt, selected photos