Hampton Wildman Parker

Hampton Wildman Parker CBE (5 July 1897 – 2 September 1968) was an English zoologist.

Parker graduated from Cambridge in 1923 with a first class in botany, zoology and chemistry. Within the same year he joined the staff of the British Museum (Natural History Museum) and was later assigned Keeper of Zoology from 1947 to 1957.[1] During his career he wrote several works on snakes and frogs.[2] Parker also discovered a new species of lizard on the Seychelles, which he described and named Vesey-Fitzgerald's burrowing skink (Janetaescincus veseyfitzgeraldi) after entomologist Leslie Desmond Foster Vesey-Fitzgerald.


Books by H.W. Parker edit

  • 1934. A Monograph of the Frogs of the Family Microhylidae. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History).
  • 1963. Snakes. London: Hale.
  • 1965. Natural History of Snakes. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History).
  • 1977. Snakes, a Natural History. University of Queensland Press.

Eponyms edit

Parker is honored in the specific names of the following reptiles: Cercosaura parkeri, Chamaelycus parkeri, Emoia parkeri, Myriopholis parkeri, Phelsuma parkeri, Prasinohaema parkeri, Sphaerodactylus parkeri, Tropidophis parkeri, and Zonurus parkeri (a synonym of Cordylus tropidosternum).[3]

References edit

  1. ^ GODWIN, H. (14 December 1968). "Is Botany Dead?". Nature. 220 (5172): 1155–1156. Bibcode:1968Natur.220.1155G. doi:10.1038/2201155c0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  2. ^ "author:"Parker, H. W. (Hampton Wildman), 1897-1968"". Catalogue. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 23 October 2008.
  3. ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Parker, H.W.", p. 200).

External links edit