George Kruck Cherrie | |
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| Born | August 22, 1865 |
| Died | January 20, 1948 (aged 82) |
| Alma mater | Iowa State College |
| Occupation(s) | Naturalist, explorer |
George Kruck Cherrie (August 22, 1865 – January 20, 1948) was an Americannaturalist andexplorer. He collected numerous specimens on nearly forty expeditions that he joined for museums and several species have been named after him.
Cherrie was born inKnoxville, Iowa. When he was 12, he began working in saw mills before graduating fromIowa State College. He worked briefly at the college museum and then at Ward's Natural Science Establishment inRochester, New York.[1]
He worked briefly at a Cedar Rapids electric bulb factory before shifting to natural history. Originally educated and employed as a mechanical engineer, he was unsatisfied and decided to studytaxonomy andtaxidermy instead. Cherrie then left the US and travelled to the West Indies and Central America. During the period 1889–1897, he was employed as a curator of birds at theCosta Rica National Museum inSan José and theField Museum in Chicago. Cherrie collected for theRothschild Zoological Museum at Tring and theBritish Museum of Natural History and served on the staff of theBrooklyn Museum and theAmerican Museum of Natural History.[2] He was an assistant Curator ofornithology from 1894 to 1897 at the Chicago Natural History Museum,[3] as the Field Museum was then called. He took part in about forty expeditions, mostly to Central and South America, includingTheodore Roosevelt'sSouth American Expedition of 1913–1914, when Cherrie was collecting specimens for theAmerican Museum of Natural History. In 1915, he went to Bolivia with the Alfred Collins-Garnet Day expedition. In 1925, he was the zoological collector for theSimpson-Roosevelts Asiatic Expedition where he accompanied Theodore Roosevelt's sonsKermit andTheodore Jr. andCharles Suydam Cutting.[4][5]
Cherrie recounted his experiences in his memoirDark Trails: Adventures of a Naturalist (1930). He is commemorated in the names of a number of animals: a species of lizard,Scincella cherriei; four species of birds, includingCherrie's tanager; and a species of mammal.[6]
In 1927, theBoy Scouts of America made Cherrie anHonorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...". The other eighteen men who were awarded this distinction were:Roy Chapman Andrews,Robert Bartlett,Frederick Russell Burnham,Richard E. Byrd,James L. Clark,Merian C. Cooper,Lincoln Ellsworth,Louis Agassiz Fuertes,George Bird Grinnell,Charles A. Lindbergh,Donald Baxter MacMillan,Clifford H. Pope,George Palmer Putnam,Kermit Roosevelt,Carl Rungius,Stewart Edward White, andOrville Wright.[7]
Cherrie died on January 20, 1948, inNewfane, Vermont, at the age of 82.
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