Edgar Alexander Mearns

Edgar Alexander Mearns was an American surgeon, ornithologist and field naturalist, born on 11 September 1856 in Highland Falls, New York, and died on 1 November 1916 in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1881 and served the United States Army as a surgeon from 1882 to 1899, then as a medical officer in several army institutions until 1903. As a major and surgeon he was appointed medical officer to the International Boundary Commission, and reported on the fauna and trees of the border between Mexico and the United States in his 1907 Mammals of the Mexican Boundary of the United States. He retired in 1909 as a lieutenant colonel, was invited by Theodore Roosevelt to join the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition as naturalist, and took part in the Childs Frick expedition in Africa in 1911 and 1912. He co-founded the American Ornithologists' Union in 1883 and scientifically described several bird and mammal species, and several animal taxa are named in his honour.