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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2007 135OBITUARY

(Inger and Marx 1965). This monograph embraced many of the
newest methods and approaches of that time and it remains a
landmark work on that group of snakes today.

In addition, Marx’s research interests also included the her-
petofauna of Egypt, the systematics and zoogeography of the
vipers, the phyletics of morphological characters, the application
of phyletic character analysis to convergent snake species, and
the application of Sharrock and Felsenstein’s combinatorial
method to phylogenetic studies. To facilitate his NSF-supported
collaborative research with George Rabb, over five hundred
snake skulls were removed from preserved specimens and pre-
pared for character analysis. These skulls, comprising over 235
genera, form a subset of the osteological collection that is well
used by researchers. This work resulted in their “50 characters
volume” (Marx and Rabb 1972) that still is of great practical use
to students of squamate systematics.

Following this time, one of us (HKV), had the privilege of
collaborating with George Rabb and Hy on a project involving
character analysis (Marx, Rabb, and Voris 1977). During the
two years that we worked on this project, the three of us had
many stimulating and heated discussions. Those readers who
knew Hy will understand us when we say that Hy provided us
with plenty of aggravation and entertainment. He often referred
to his two co-workers, not as his esteemed collaborators, but
rather as his “close enemies.”

Hy’s research interests were varied, but the subject that
interested him most was the evolution of venomous snakes in
the family Viperidae. But Hy did not fit any stereotype of a
dusty, dry museum curator — if you met Hy, even briefly, you
immediately learned that he was exceptionally gregarious! This
was true in both his personal and professional life. In his profes-
sional life, this took the form that most of us call collaborations,

O B I T U A R Y

Hymen Marx, Curator Emeritus at the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, died on 25 January

2007 in Sun City, Arizona. During his 42 years at the Field
Museum, Hy contributed much to the field of herpetology
through his own research and through his unique, lively, and
supportive personality.

Hymen “Hy” Marx was born 27 June 1925 in Chicago,
Illinois. He lived in the Chicago area until his move to Arizona
in the early 1990s. His father, Phillip Marx, was a butcher and his
mother, Minnie Serota Marx, was a homemaker. Hy was drafted
into the U.S. Air Force in 1943. He served as a radar mechanic
and was stationed in the U.K., where he worked on a ground
crew of the 8th Air Force maintaining the radar systems of the
famous “Flying Fortresses.” Like so many others, Hy went back
to school in 1945 under the G.I. Bill and graduated in 1949 from
Roosevelt University with a B.S. degree and a major in biology.
That marked the end of Hy’s formal education, and from then
on he depended on colleagues and his own intellectual curiosity
to fuel his career development. In Hy’s case — and to his great
credit — that was enough. While in school, Hy met Audrey
Elaine Greene and they married in 1950 and had two children.

In 1948, while he was a student at Roosevelt University,
Hy began volunteering in the Division of Amphibians and
Reptiles, working as an assistant to Karl P. Schmidt. Hy referred
to Clifford H. Pope and “K. P.” Schmidt as his “academic
papas.” Hy joined the Division in 1950 as its first full-time
assistant. For the next ten years, he served as “Collection
Manager,” and oversaw the collection through significant
growth and reorganization, including a major move from the
third floor to the ground floor in 1952–53. This period of
intensive collection growth was marked by the arrival, in 1954,
of 35 five-gallon milk cans containing 77,000 frogs and toads
that were sent by the Institut des Parcs Nationaux de Congo
Belge to Karl Schmidt for identification. This huge shipment
almost matched the number of specimens (85,000) in the entire
collection at the time, and a significant number of these speci-
mens were deposited at the Field (Bauer 1954). This period also
was marked by the Division’s single most significant purchase,
that of the Edward Harrison Taylor collection of 35,000 speci-
mens, which was accessioned beginning in 1959. That collec-
tion, which is extensively cited in the herpetological literature,
includes many type specimens, caecilians, and skeletons. Its geo-
graphic strengths include Mexico, Costa Rica, Liberia, Sri
Lanka, and Thailand. During these ten years, Hy also published
16 papers, which led to his promotion to the curatorial ranks.
He was promoted to full curator in 1973.

For roughly 40 years, Hy’s career at Field Museum over-
lapped with that of Robert (Bob) F. Inger. Hy and Bob collab-
orated on several publications, but the most notable was their
monograph on the snakes of the colubrid genus Calamaria

Hymen Marx
(1925–2007)

Hymen Marx releasing a male Common Basilisk (Basiliscus basiliscus)
prior to determining its running speed (photograph © 1966, courtesy
of The Field Museum. Z89606).



136 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2007

but Hy referred to it as “sharing our sandbox.” He was a great
collaborator, but this activity was not for the weak of heart! He
was sharp, witty, insightful, and prone to wander far off the sub-
ject. A lively discussion might initially address the shape of the
dentary bone in the Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica) and then
inexplicably shift to Hy providing a review of “Sleeper,” Woody
Allen’s latest movie at the time. This was vintage Hy Marx. No
collaborator could expect to evade one of Hy’s practical jokes —
that was the cost of doing business. Karel Liem, Henry Bryant,
Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology at Harvard University, and
George Rabb, now President Emeritus of the Chicago
Zoological Society, and several others know this only too well!

Hy contributed greatly to the academic and administrative
life at Field Museum. He served as the Head of the Division of
Amphibians and Reptiles from 1970–79, and from 1985–90,
and over the years served on more than 20 Museum commit-
tees. Hy fully understood the importance of encouraging young
people in their interests, and for that reason, he was an active
contributor to Members’ Nights at the Museum, when doors
were opened for members to view the work that goes on
“behind the scenes.” Hy also had many unofficial roles at the
Museum, and he served as a sort of social guru to the entire staff.
In this regard, Hy referred to himself as a “social butterfly,” and
enjoyed organizing both intellectual discussions on character
analysis as well as recruiting teams and scheduling times for dou-
bles tennis matches.

During Hy’s 40 years of service at Field Museum, he also
served on the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the
University of Chicago. In this capacity, he did not teach formal
classes, but rather he informally guided both master’s and doc-
toral degree students in their research programs. On this, one of
us (HKV) can speak from first-hand experience. Hy helped me
choose a Ph.D. research topic on sea snakes that shaped my
entire professional career. He freely gave his time and expertise
to help many young visiting scientists prosper in their special
fields of study. One of the “official” activities of visiting
researchers and students was to visit Hy’s office and kibitz about
their research. For this we are all very grateful.

Hy was not a man who tried to impress others by putting
on airs. Instead, he was equally friendly to the Museum’s house-
keeping staff and the top administrators of the Field Museum
and other lofty institutions. He was not impressed with admin-
istrative rank and academic credentials, and he applied uniquely
Marxian methods to make this evident. In his assignment of
nicknames, no one received much respect and no one could
hide! For example, Robert K. Johnson, Chairman of the
Zoology Department, was “Bunky” or “El Bunko Grande,”
James P. Bacon, Curator of Reptiles, San Diego Zoo, was
“Bakey,” and George Rabb, Director of the Brookfield Zoo, was
“Georgy Porgy.” Of course, behind each of these nicknames was
an endearing story that showed how Hy paid attention to the
human beings with whom he lived and worked. We were indi-
viduals, not Directors, Curators, and Chairmen. In the end, that
is why so many at the Field Museum and in the field of her-
petology counted Hy Marx as a close friend, a great colleague,
and a real human being. Hy Marx was truly one of a kind,
absolutely unique, an amazing rare bird, and irreplaceable. All
of our lives have been immensely enriched by knowing Hy
Marx, and we will miss him greatly.

Literature Cited
Bauer, M.J. 1954. Frogs, frogs, frogs — and more frogs. Chicago Natural

History Museum Bulletin 25(5):5.

Inger, R.F. and H. Marx. 1965. The systematics and evolution of the Oriental
colubrid snakes of the genus Calamaria. Fieldiana Zoology 49:1–304.

Marx, H. and G.B. Rabb. 1972. Phyletic analysis of fifty characters of advanced
snakes. Fieldiana Zoology 63:1–321.

Marx, H., G.B. Rabb, and H.K. Voris. 1977. The differentiation of character
state relationships by binary coding and the monothetic subset method.
Fieldiana Zoology 72:1–20.

Resetar, A. and H.K. Voris. 1997. Herpetology at the Field Museum of Natural
History: The first one hundred years, pp. 495–506. In: T.W. Pietsch and
W.D. Anderson, Jr. (eds.), Collection Building in Ichthyology and
Herpetology. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists,
Lawrence, Kansas.

Stewart, M.M. and C. Redhed. 2002. Hymen Marx. Copeia 2002:524–526.

Harold K. Voris and Alan Resetar
Division of Amphibians and Reptiles

Department of Zoology
Field Museum of Natural History

1400 South Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605

OBITUARY

Hymen Marx holding a preserved specimen of the common European
Viper (Vipera berus) that was cataloged as FMNH 200,000 in September
1975 (photograph © 1975, courtesy of The Field Museum. GN82282).




