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Name: HELLER, Edmond
Birth Date: 21 May 1875 Freeport, Illinois
Death Date: 18 July 1939 San Francisco
Nationality: USA
First Date: 1905
Profession: Naturalist, zoologist, accompanied Carl Akeley's and Theodore Roosevelt's EA expeditions
Area: Kiambu
Married: 17 July 1918 Hilda Hempl b. 5 Aug 1891 Ann Arbor, Michigan, d. 1 May 1964 Arequipa, Peru
Book Reference: HBEA, Hut, Red Book 1912
General Information:
Heller also participated in explorations in Alaska with the Biological Survey, in Peru with Yale University and the National Geographic Society, in China with the American Museum of Natural History, and in Russia with Paul J. Rainey, official photographer to the Czech army in Siberia. From 1926 to 1928, he was curator of mammals at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Edmund Heller was the director of the Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee (from 1928 to 1935) and the Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco (from 1935 to 1939). He was also the president of the AZA from 1935 to 1939. At the beginning of the 20th century he led many expeditions to Africa and in 1914 he wrote the book Life-histories of African Game Animals in collaboration with Theodore Roosevelt.
Species and subspecies which were named in honor of Heller include the Southern Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus helleri), Heller's coral snake (Micrurus lemniscatus helleri), a skink (Panaspis helleri), the red-necked keelback (Rhabdophis subminiatus helleri), the Taita thrush (Turdus helleri), and the puna thistletail (Schizoeaca helleri).