Charles Eric Dawson

Charles Eric Dawson
Dawson in 1991
Born	(1922 -12-06)December 6, 1922 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Died	February 11, 1993(1993-02-11) (aged 70)
Scientific career
Fields	Ichthyology

Charles Eric "Chuck" Dawson Jr. (December 6, 1922 – February 11, 1993) was a Canadian-American ecologist, ichthyologist, and taxonomist. He held expertise in gobies, flatfishes, and sand stargazers, and was considered "the ultimate authority" on pipefishes in the family Syngnathidae.[1][2]

Life

Dawson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School in Florida.[3] Dawson served in the Canadian Army during World War II, losing an eye in the Battle of Dieppe, France.[1] He also joined the United States Army in September 1944 as a private, became a naturalized citizen in 1946.[1][4] He attended University of Miami.

He spent much of his career at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where he worked early as an administrator, then researcher, and museum curator. Over his long career, Dawson wrote 150 publications, the majority of which he was the sole author of.[5] He recognized 52 Syngnathid genera and provided systematic reviews of most of them. His work culminated with his extensive review of all Indo-Pacific pipefishes.[6]

Taxon described by him

• See Category:Taxa named by Charles Eric Dawson

Death

He died as a result of a bronchioloalveolar carcinoma in combination with other long-term lung ailments.[1]

Taxon named in his honor

• Syngnathus dawsoni (Herald, 1969) [7]
• the chain pearlfish, Echiodon dawsoni Williams and Shipp, 1982,
• the Brazilian goby Priolepis dawsoni Greenfield.
• The parasitic copepod Therodamas dawsoni Cressey, 1972,
• the marine barnacle Octolasmis dawsoni Causey, 1960[1]

References

1. Overstreet, Robin M.; Poss, Stuart, G. (1993). "Charles Eric "Chuck" Dawson, 1922 - 1993 [In Memoriam]". Copeia. 1993 (3): 921–925. JSTOR 1447279.
2. Dawson, C.E. (1982). "Review of the Indo-Pacific pipefish genus Stigmatopora (Syngnathidae)". Records of the Australian Museum. 34 (13): 575–605. doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.34.1982.243.
3. "Miss Mary Rose Howe Wed To Charles E. Dawson Jr.", St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Florida, volume 62, number 158, December 28, 1945, page 12. (subscription required)
4. "Charles E Jr Dawson in the United States World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946", available at Ancestry.com. The event date is listed as September 21, 1944, and the rank is listed as private.
5. Poss, Stuart G.; Heal, Elizabeth (1993). "The Scientific Publications of Charles Eric Dawson (1948-1990)". Gulf and Caribbean Research. 9 (1): 69–73. doi:10.18785/grr.0901.08. Retrieved February 13, 2016.
6. Dawson, Charles Eric (1985). Indo-Pacific Pipefishes (Red Sea to the Americas). Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
7. Herald, E. S. (1969). "A new pipefish from the Virgin Islands, Micrognathus dawsoni". Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences. 73: 1–3.