Cyril Crossland

Cyril Crossland (1878 – 1943) was an English zoologist.

He worked as an assistant to Charles Eliot. He studied several groups of marine animals, especially the Protozoa, Corals and Molluscs.[1]

Career

Cyril Crossland (1878-1943) was born in Sheffield, the son of landscape painter James Henry Crossland. He studied and worked with marine flora and fauna in a variety of UK and overseas locations, summarised below:

1894-1900 Student at University of London (gained BSc. in 1900).

1897-1900 Student at Cambridge University (gained Master's degree in 1902).

1900-Mar 1902 Assistant to Sir Charles Eliot (British Consul-General at Zanzibar, Commissioner for East African Protectorate, and specialist in nudibranchs, collecting and studying marine fauna in Zanzibar.

1902-1904 Assistant to Professor William Carmichael McIntosh at St Andrews University.

Jul-Sept 1904 Collecting in the Cape Verde Islands, assisted by a grant from the Carnegie Institution.

Oct 1904-May 1905 Selected by Professor W A Herdman to investigate fauna and flora of the Sudan Coast of the Red Sea.

1905-1922 Director of the Sudan Pearl Fishery.

1923 Scientific research in England.

1924-1926 Joined the St George expedition to the South Pacific in 1924, visiting the Panama region, Galapagos and Marquesas, before leaving the expedition at Tahiti, where he continued to study marine ecology and corals.

1927 Scientific research in England.

1928 Returned to Tahiti, to study coral reefs.

1930-38 Established and directed a marine biological station at Ghardaqa on the Red Sea Coast, at the request of the Egyptian Government. During this time, he also participated in an oceanographical expedition to the North West Indian Ocean, in the Egyptian Steamer 'Mabahiss'.

1938-1943 Moved to Denmark with his wife and son, continuing scientific work at the University of Copenhagen's Zoological Museum until his death.

Crossland discovered over one hundred new species; two genera and around twenty-five species are named after him. Including small notes, he published about fifty titles, thirty of which are purely scientific in nature.

Crossland's interest in protozoa, begun during his years as assistant to McIntosh, continued throughout his career. He published seven papers on protozoa, all concerning species from the Red Sea, East Africa, Zanzibar the Maldives and the Cape Verde Islands. However, Crossland is best known for his influential work on corals and coral reefs, including his important paper 'On Forskals's Collection of Corals in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen', and his ecological studies of Zanzibar, Tahiti and the Red Sea. Few scientific papers result from his stay on the Sudan Coast; his large manuscript on the biology and cultivation of the pearl oyster never found publication.

The World Register of Marine Species lists 67 marine species named by Crossland, many of which have become synonyms. [2] Sixty marine species were named after him with the epithet "crosslandi". [3]

Publications

References

  1. Brown, AF: Cyril Crossland: In Memoriam, Dansk Naturhis Forening CVI, Copenhagen, 1943, p.xii-xvi
  2. WoRMS: Species named by Crossland
  3. WoRMS, Species named after Crossland
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