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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 12, NUMBER 3  •  SEPTEMBER 2005 197HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

XXX. a female from Chiapam, of the natural size, also the inner
side of the calf of the leg, to show the size of the scales.

3. Ctenosaura quinquecarinata.
Cyclura quinquecarinata, Gray, Zool. Misc. p. 59; Cope, Proc.

Am. Phil. Soc. xi. 1871, p. 161.
Enyaliosaurus quinquecarinatus, Gray, Cat. Liz. p. 192.
Ctenosaura quinquecarinata, Sumichrast, Bibl. Univ. et Rev.

Suisse, 1873, p. 259; and Bull. Soc. Zool. v. 1880, p. 175.

Hab. MEXICO, Oaxaca (Boucard), Tehuantepec (Sumichrast);
HONDURAS (Mus. Brit.).

Tail much thickened and depressed near its base, verticil-
lated, each verticellus formed by a ring of large strongly armed
scutes, and by a ring of much narrower and unarmed scutes. The
armature is confined to the upper and lateral surfaces of the tail,
the lower side being comparatively smooth. The strongest spines
are arranged in one median, and two or three lateral series.

Dorsal crest very low, obsolete in the sacral region. Upper parts
and throat yellowish, marbled with black or brown.

4. Ctenosaura defensor.
Cachryx defensor, Cope, Proc. Ac. N. Sc. Phil. xviii. p. 124; Proc.
Am. Phil. Soc. 1869, p. 169, t. 10; Bocourt, Miss. Sc. Mex.,
Rept. p. 143, t. 17 bis. figg. 12, 12a.

Hab. MEXICO, Yucatan (A. Schott, U.S. Nat. Mus.).

Extralimital are the following species: —
1. Iguana acanthura, Blainville, = Cyclura acanthura, Dum.

& Bibr., = Cyclura hemilopha, Cope, Boulenger, = Ctenosaura
acanthura, Bocourt (Miss. Sc. Mex., Rept. p. 138), = Ctenosaura
interrupta, Bocourt (Le Naturaliste, 1882, p. 47). — Lower
California.

2. Ctenosaura erythromelas, Boul. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p.
241, t. 23; Cachryx erythromelas, Cope, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus.
1886, p. 437. — Probably Lower California.

Albert Günther was born in 1830 in Esslingen, Württemberg
(Germany). He entered the theological school at the

University of Tübingen in 1847 and took holy orders in the
Lutheran Church in 1851, although he subsequently turned to
medical studies because of a longstanding interest in natural his-
tory and the influence of several professors. He received a doctor-
ate in philosophy and arts in 1853 and went on to medical school,
initially in Berlin, before teaching in Bonn, and finally complet-
ing his medical degree in Tübingen in 1857.

That same year, Günther offered his services to John E.
Gray, Keeper of the Zoology Department at the British Museum,
and was hired to catalogue the museum’s snake collection, then
the frogs, and finally the fishes, which occupied him for the rest
of his life. Günther took over the Keeper’s position from Gray in
1875 and, like Gray before him, aggressively built the collection,
taking advantage of opportunities presented as the British Empire
expanded. In 1879, he hired Georges Boulenger and placed him
in charger of lower vertebrates, assuring that the long tradition of
herpetological research at the British Museum would continue.

Günther founded Zoological Record in 1865, and it is still
today the most complete index of the world’s zoological literature.
Günther’s greatest zoological discovery occurred in 1867, when
he announced the recognition that Sphenodon of New Zealand
was not a lizard but the sole living representative of the order
Rhynchocephalia. In addition, he published Reptiles of British
India (1864), The Gigantic Land-Tortoises (Living and Extinct)
(1877 [1878]), and the herpetological volume in the series
Biologia Centrali-Americana (1885–1902). Günther’s work on
lower vertebrates was regularly cited by Charles Darwin in Descent
of Man (1871), in which he depended heavily on Günther for his

information about sexual characters. In addition to the books,
Günther published some 200 papers on herpetology, with a geo-
graphic emphasis on Australia, Africa, and Asia. Günther retired
in 1895 and died at Kew, London in 1914.

B I O G R A P H I C A L  S K E T C H

Albert C. L. G. Günther (1830–1914)1

Albert C. L. G. Günther in about 1900. Photograph courtesy of
Kraig Adler and the British Museum (Natural History) Library.

1 Source: Adler, K. 1989. Herpetologists of the past, pp. 5–141.
In K. Adler (ed.), Contributions to the History of Herpetology.
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles,
Contributions to Herpetology, vol. 5. Ithaca, New York.




