Francis Bertody Sumner

Francis Bertody Sumner (August 1, 1874 – September 6, 1945) was an American ichthyologist, zoologist and writer.^[1][2]

Sumner was born in Pomfret, Connecticut. He studied at the University of Minnesota and Columbia University where in 1901 he received a PhD with a thesis on fish embryology.^[3] He became the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Laboratory at Woods Hole. He worked as a Professor of Biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.^[3][4]

Sumner collected many subspecies of Peromyscus in California. He also studied the pigments of fishes.^[3]

Publications

• A Biological Survey of the Waters of Woods Hole and Vicinity (1913)
• Heredity, Environment, and Responsibility (1921)
• Genetic, Distributional, and Evolutionary Studies of the Subspecies of Deer Mice (Peromyscus) (1932)
• The Life History of an American Naturalist (1945)

References

1. Hubbs, Carl L. (1945). "Francis B. Sumner; 1874 - 1945". Copeia. 4: 183–184. JSTOR 1438348.
2. Provine, William B. (1979). "Francis B. Sumner and the evolutionary synthesis". Studies in History of Biology. 3: 211–40. PMID 11610986.
3. Child, Charles Manning. (1948). Biographical Memoir of Francis Bertody Sumner. In Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Sciences 25: 147-173.
4. Huestis, R. R. (1946). "Francis Bertody Sumner, 1874-1945". Journal of Mammalogy. 27 (1): 1. doi:10.2307/1375136. JSTOR 1375136.