This article tells the stories behind the names of two species of Galápagos giant tortoise, Chelonoidis porteri and Chelonoidis donfaustoi, both of which inhabit Santa Cruz Island and which, until 2015, were considered one species, C. porteri. Taking a multispecies approach, it demonstrates how changing species designations reflect coevolving histories of science and conservation. Walter Rothschild assigned the name Testudo porteri in 1903 at a time when naturalists increasingly were concerned about the scarcity of animals they came to see as both endemic and endangered. Rothschild’s epithet honored US naval captain David Porter, the first person to write about differences among the Galápagos tortoises in the 1810s, which he noticed because his crews gathered tons of the animals as food stores for Pacific voyages. For Rothschild, saving species meant preserving them in his museum for the benefit of science before they were eaten. A century later, some of the C. porteri animals were renamed C. donfaustoi based on genetic studies of evolution and very different approaches to saving endangered species. This case study shows how nature, science, and conservation have coproduced species differently at different historical moments. By examining the changing practices through which species are enacted, this article outlines a framework by which environmental historians might productively engage with histories of science and science and technology studies to query just what species are, how they change, and with what consequences.
...More
Article
Elizabeth Hennessy;
James P. Gibbs;
(2022)
When De-extinction Really Happens: The Revival of the Floreana Giant Tortoises in the Galápagos Archipelago
(/isis/citation/CBB934422314/)
Book
Elizabeth Hennessy;
(2019)
On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden
(/isis/citation/CBB367881316/)
Article
Peter S. Alagona;
(2016)
Species Complex: Classification and Conservation in American Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB349043793/)
Article
Sterckx, Roel;
(2005)
Animal Classification in Ancient China
(/isis/citation/CBB000630858/)
Chapter
Des Chene, Dennis;
(2006)
Animal as Category: Bayle's “Rorarius”
(/isis/citation/CBB000771979/)
Thesis
Miller, Jeanne;
(2013)
More Than the Sum of Its Parts: Animal Categories and Accretive Logic in Volume One of al-Jahiz's “Kitab al-Hayawan”
(/isis/citation/CBB001562881/)
Article
Carruthers, Jane;
(2013)
The Royal Natal National Park, Kwazulu-Natal: Mountaineering, Tourism and Nature Conservation in South Africa's First National Park c.1896 to c.1947
(/isis/citation/CBB001421400/)
Book
Hersey, Mark D.;
(2011)
My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver
(/isis/citation/CBB001212363/)
Book
Charlotte Vallino;
(2023)
Salvaguardare la natura, proteggere l'ambiente, difendere la Terra. I pionieri del pensiero del nostro tempo
(/isis/citation/CBB029916093/)
Chapter
Irina Podgorny;
(2016)
Los Pichiciegos: Scraps of Information and the Affinities of Mammals in the Early Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB814101855/)
Article
N. Woodman;
(2021)
The green mole, Astromycter prasinatus T. M. Harris, 1825 (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Talpidae): an origin story
(/isis/citation/CBB120889227/)
Article
Plumb, Christopher;
(2010)
“Strange and Wonderful”: Encountering the Elephant in Britain, 1675--1830
(/isis/citation/CBB001032697/)
Article
Duval, Jessie;
Callou, Cécile;
Horard-Herbin, Marie-Pierre;
(2011)
Le castor Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 en France. Étude archéozoologique
(/isis/citation/CBB001201449/)
Article
Loveland, Jeff;
(2010)
Animals in British and French Encyclopaedias in the Long Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001032692/)
Article
Theodore W. Pietsch;
Hans Aili;
(2023)
Peter Artedi's early observations of the spotted hyena and other exotic animals during a visit to London (1734–1735)
(/isis/citation/CBB731879130/)
Article
Nicola Carraro;
(2019)
Dualisers in Aristotle’s Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB681371081/)
Article
Gibson, Susannah;
(2012)
On Being an Animal, or, the Eighteenth-Century Zoophyte Controversy in Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001211124/)
Book
Minteer, Ben A.;
Jane Maienschein;
James P. Collins;
(2018)
The Ark and Beyond: The Evolution of Zoo and Aquarium Conservation
(/isis/citation/CBB451460827/)
Book
Leslie K. Miller;
Smart, Christopher;
Excell, Louis;
(2018)
Reimagining a place for the wild
(/isis/citation/CBB441839562/)
Chapter
Brian W. Ogilvie;
(2013)
Beasts, Birds, and Insects: Folkbiology and Early Modern Classification of Insects
(/isis/citation/CBB186772179/)
Be the first to comment!