Melbourne Armstrong Carriker

Melbourne Armstrong Carriker, Jr. (February 14, 1879 – July 27, 1965) was an American ornithologist and entomologist.^[1]

Melbourne Armstrong Carriker
Born	February 14, 1879
Died	July 27, 1965 (1965-07-28) (aged 86)
Nationality	American
Known for	World's authority on bird lice; described numerous families, genera and species
Scientific career
Fields	Ornithology, entomology

Biography

Life

Carriker was born in Sullivan, Illinois, in 1879. He attended the University of Nebraska, where he studied Mallophaga (bird lice) under Lawrence Bruner. He had a son, Melbourne Romaine Carriker, who was a marine malacologist.^[2]

He Moved with his family in Beachwood, New Jersey, after returning to the United States in 1927.^[3]

He died in 1965.^[1]

Career

Carriker began collecting the skins of birds and studying avian habits when he graduated from high school. He held an interest in bird lice, and became a world authority on genera from the neotropics. He communicated with global Mallophaga systematists and published numerous papers in both Spanish and English. He also described two families, four subfamilies, 53 genera and subgenera, and approximately 866 species and subspecies of bird lice throughout his career. He traveled extensively throughout South America and collected specimens for the Carnegie Museum, the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (then the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia), the United States National Museum, the Peabody Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.^[1]

Carriker worked as an assistant curator of birds at Carnegie Museum from 1907 to 1909. He became an honorary collaborator in the Department of Entomology, at the United States National Museum, in 1953.^[1]

References

1. Melbourne Armstrong Carriker at the SIA archives.
2. "Folklife Festival 2011: Colombia and the Smithsonian" by Courtney Esposito on July 5, 2011. Smithsonian Institution Archives.
3. Wiedenfeld, David A.; and Carriker, Melbourne R. "In Memoriam: Melbourne Armstrong Carriker Jr., 1879-1965", The Auk, January 2007. Accessed August 24, 2021. "So Vista Nieve was sold, and the Carriker family moved to Beachwood, New Jersey. Times were hard for the family for the next year and a half. While waiting for the position to open at the academy, Carriker—a skilled carpenter—worked in that trade as a contractor, and was active in local politics."