William Harper Pease was a 19th-century American conchologist, shell collector and malacologist. He described many species of Indo-Pacific

Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia...

 marine mollusks from the Cumming collection.

He moved in 1849 to Honolulu, from where he continued his research

One of the genera he described and named was the sea slug genus: Philinopsis

Philinopsis

Philiopsis is a genus of often colorful, medium-sized, sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks. These are not nudibranchs; instead they are headshield slugs, in the clade Cephalaspidea...

Pease, 1860

Several species were named in his honor : Favartia peasei

Favartia peasei

Favartia peasei is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails....

(Tryon, 1880), Conus peasei J. Brazier, 1877, Amygdalum peasei W. Newcomb, 1870 and Hypselodoris peasei (Bergh, 1880)

Further reading

• H. Crosse & P. Fischer, 1873. Nécrologie. Journal de Conchyliologie 21(1): 99.
• Anonymous, 1960. Pease’s catalogue of books on Hawaii. Hawaiian Shell News 8(7): 4-5.
• K. W. Greene, 1960. William Harper Pease – 100 years later. Hawaiian Shell News 8(6): 1, 4-5; 8(7): 4-5; 8(8): 1, 3-4, 8; 8(9): 5, 8; 8(10): 5, 8; 8(12): 5-6.
• K. W. Greene, 1961. Additional data for your Pease file. Hawaiian Shell News 10(2): 2.
• E. A. Kay, 1965. Marine mollusks in the Cuming collection, British Museum (Natural History) described by William Harper Pease. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Zoology, Supplement 1: 96 pp., 14 pls.
• E. A. Kay, 1975. A biobibliography of William Harper Pease, malacologist of Polynesia. Part I. A biography of William Harper Pease. Nemouria 16: 1-21.
• W. E. Clench, 1975. Catalogue of the species and bibliography of William Harper Pease. Nemouria 16: 21-50.
• R. I. Johnson, 1994. Types of shelled Indo- Pacific mollusks described by W. H. Pease. Harvard University, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 154(1): 61 pp., incl. 10 pls.
• R. I. Johnson, 2002. On the cunning character of a couple of conchologist collectors, Wesley Newcomb and William Harper Pease. Occasional Papers on Mollusks 6(81): 164-173.