Elizabeth L Kerr
Born
United States of America
NationalityAmerican
Known forColombian bird surveys
Scientific career
FieldsOrnithology

Elizabeth L Kerr was an American ornithologist, who collected hundreds of birds for the American Museum of Natural History bird surveys in Colombia, in the first decades of 20th-century.

Frank Chapman, the organiser of the early 20th-century surveys and the museums curator of birds, used the Mrs. Kerr Collection to help with the distribution of Columbian birds. He relegated Kerr's contribution to a footnote in his The Distribution of Bird-Life in Colombia. A Contribution to a Biological Survey of South America.[1] In 1915 he named the Choco tinamou, Crypturellus kerriae (Chapman, 1915) after her. [2]

A group of female ornithologists surveying Colombian birds, consider Kerr an inspiration for 21st-century female ornithologists. Of the ninety species found by the 2020 expedition, twenty-six species were documented by Kerr. [3]

References

  1. Soto-Patiño, Juliana; Certuche-Cubillos, Katherine; Díaz-Cárdenas, Jessica; Garzón-Lozano, Daniela; Guzmán-Moreno, Estefanía; Niño-Rodríguez, Nelsy; Pérez-Amaya, Natalia; Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia (10 April 2023). "The once-invisible legacy of Elizabeth L. Kerr, a naturalist in the early 20th century, and her contributions to Colombian ornithology". Ornithological Applications. 125 (2).
  2. Peters' Checklist, Mayr & Cottrell (1979), v1 ed. 2, p. 32 BHL
  3. Afzal, Pareesay. "Two Expeditions Highlight the Work of Women Ornithologists in Colombia and Brazil". TheCornellLab. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
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