Hildegarde Howard

Hildegarde Howard (April 3, 1901 – February 28, 1998) was an American pioneer in paleornithology. She was mentored by the famous ornithologist, Joseph Grinnell, at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) and in avian paleontology. She was well known for her discoveries in the La Brea Tar Pits, among them the Rancho La Brea eagles. She discovered and described Pleistocene flightless waterfowl at the prehistoric Ballona wetlands of coastal Los Angeles County at Playa del Rey. In 1953, Howard became the third woman to be awarded the Brewster Medal. She was the first woman president of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Hildegarde wrote 150 papers throughout her career. In 1920 Howard commenced her studies at the Southern Branch of the University of California (later renamed UCLA).

In 1929 Howard returned to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and she held a permanent position there as a curator. However, she was not officially given the title of a curator until 1938. Her initial title was Junior clerk and Howard's job was researching fossils from the Rancho La Brea as well as curating them. Named chief curator of science in 1951, she retired in 1961, but continued to conduct research and to publish on avian evolution. While at the museum and in retirement, Howard described three families, 13 genera, 57 species, and 2 subspecies. In 1977 the Los Angeles Museum of History decided to honour Hildegarde Howard in the Cenozoic life Hall. She named this family of pelecaniformes seabirds plotopteridae. After corrections to the methodology of the experiment, she was able to collect 41 nests to study the structure of their nesting. Howard detailed, named and labelled a baseline for the skeletal makeup of all birds. One of them was a census conducted by Dr. Chester Stock regarding mammals of the region, while the other was a census of the birds.

Examination of abnormal wing of a pintail duck In this paper, Howard examined the possibility of regeneration after a man claimed that a Northern pintail duck who had its wing shot off was able to grow it back. When the specimen was submitted to the Los Angeles Museum, it was noted that there was a new portion joined to the old portion. The entry detailed this evidence; however, Howard did not conclude that this was the regeneration of the bones, since it had never been recorded before. She kept the possibility open because of the close relation between reptiles and birds, since reptiles have the ability to regenerate. She goes into a full-depth investigation along with evidence filled with measurements and comparisons and finally comes to the conclusion that the bones found in the exhibit were of a new species, which is now named Oraristrix brea. She published her findings in The Condor in 1932, naming the entry 'A New Species of Owl from the Pleistocene of Rancho La Brea, California'. After comparing the new specimen with the bones of other Geococcyx californius from New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico, Howard observed that none of them are similar in size to the specimen. A year earlier, fossils were discovered two miles away in another cave, whose size was similar to the specimen and exemplified further the dissimilarity with the great roadrunner. Hence, Howard proposed that this specimen be classified as a new species called the Geococcyx conklingi. Elected President, Southern California Academy of Sciences (first woman president