Leonhard Hess Stejneger

Leonhard Hess Stejneger (30 October 1851 – 28 February 1943) was a Norwegian-born American ornithologist, herpetologist and zoologist. Stejneger specialized in vertebrate natural history studies. He gained his greatest reputation with reptiles and amphibians.

Early life and family

Stejneger was born in Bergen, Norway. His father was Peter Stamer Steineger, a merchant and auditor; his mother was Ingeborg Catharine (née Hess). Leonhard was the eldest of seven children. His sister Agnes Steineger was a Norwegian artist. Until 1880, the Steineger family had been one of the wealthy families in Bergen; at that time business reverses led to the father declaring bankruptcy.

Stejneger attended the Smith Theological School in Bergen from 1859 to 1860, and Bergen Latin School until 1869. His interests in zoology developed early. By age sixteen, he had a printed catalogue of birds, and he painted birds in water color. He moved with his mother to Meran in South Tyrol and studied under a private tutor. Around 1870, he began to spell his surname "Stejneger" and continued to use that spelling for the rest of his life.

Career In 1880, Stejneger ordered a walking cane with a built-in collector's gun which would serve him in his specimen collection until the end of his life. In 1881, Stejneger moved to the United States on the advice of Jean Cabanis. He had married Anna Norman in 1876 but she chose not to move to the United States and they separated and later divorced. On arriving in the US, he immediately went to the Smithsonian Institution to meet Spencer Fullerton Baird after taking some time sitting in a park to brush up on his English vocabulary. Baird had been in communication and knew his competence and he began to work soon after. Stejneger became an American citizen in 1887.

Within the Smithsonian Institution, he moved up the career ladder. In 1884 he was Assistant Curator for birds, in 1889 Curator for reptiles, in 1899 Curator for reptiles and amphibians, and from 1911 on Head Curator for biology, a post he held until his death, having been exempted from retirement by a presidential decree.

Stejneger published more than 400 scientific works on birds, reptiles, seals, the herpetology of Puerto Rico, and other topics. He is also commemorated in several bird species including Mellanitta stejnegeri and Saxicola stejnegeri, and his name is also in the English common names of a cetacean, Stejneger's beaked whale, and a bird, Stejneger's petrel.

Selected bibliography For a complete list of all papers, see Wetmore (1945). Some of his major works include:

Results of Ornithological Explorations in the Commander Islands and in Kamtschatka (1885) Birds of Kauai Island, Hawaiian Archipelago / collected by Mr. Valdemar Knudsen, with description of new species (1887) Notes on a third collection of birds made in Kauai, Hawaiian Islands (1890) The Poisonous Snakes of North America (1895) The Russian Fur-Seal Islands (1896) Herpetology of Porto Rico (1904) Herpetology of Japan and Adjacent Territories (1907) A new Gerrhonotine Lizard from Costa Rica (1907) Three new species of lizards from the Philippine Islands (1908) A new genus and species of lizard from Florida (1911) A new Scincid Lizard from the Philippine Islands (1911) Results of the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911. Batrachians and Reptiles (1913) A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles [with Thomas Barbour] (1917) A chapter in the history of zoological nomenclature (1924) Fur-seal industry of the Commander Islands: 1897–1922 (1925) Identity of Hallowell's snake genera, Megalops and Aepidea (1927) The Chinese lizards of the genus Gekko (1934) Georg Wilhelm Steller, the pioneer of Alaskan natural history (1936)