Exonian Profiles
|
Frank Whitmore ’34: Honored to Be
a Fossil
Frank Whitmore ’34 is delighted to be called a fossil—or more accurately, to have the fossils of two new species named after him. “To me this is the highest honor that I could receive,” says Whitmore, whose work as a paleontologist has spanned more than six decades. “It signifies recognition by my peers, people who understand what I am doing. I’d rather have a species named after me than be given a medal.” Bishops whitmorei was a small shrewlike animal whose remains were discovered in the all-but-unexplored Ghastly Blank region of the Australian outback. It was a contemporary of the dinosaurs. Eomysticetus whitmorei, a species of baleen whale that lived more than 30 million years ago, was found in South Carolina. Both carry the species designation whitmorei as a testament to the knowledge and the tenacity that Frank Whitmore brought to his work. These very qualities were cited by Thomas H. Rich, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, in explaining why he choose to name a new mammal after Whitmore and his colleague Barry Bishop. The pair, who were directors of the National Geographic Society’s Committee on Research and Exploration, “never gave up the hope that the mammals and birds would turn up,” Rich wrote in a testimonial, “and most of all [they] kept encouraging us by telling us that.” Whitmore left Exeter for Amherst College after spending his senior year here. “I really learned to study at Exeter and that made my college and postcollege studies easier,” he remembers. With a doctoral degree from Harvard he took his first job, teaching at Rhode Island State College. At the beginning of World War II, he joined the U.S. Geological Survey. His subsequent work as a paleontologist has been internationally recognized: he received the National Geographic Society’s Arnold Guyot Memorial Award, and in 1994, the San Diego Society of Natural History published a book entitled Marine Mammal Paleontology in his honor. Although he retired from his position with the Geological Survey in 1984, he maintained his lab at the Smithsonian Institution until very recently. He considers his time at the museum—“where great things are coming in all the time and where scientists from all over the world are coming in to study the things we have collected”—one of the highlights of his career. “I also have had fun visiting other international museums,” he says, “being part of an international body of friends.” Fieldwork was another favorite part of his life. He recalls in particular what he terms “a golden day in 50 years of digging,” a day spent uncovering a fossil sea cow on the island of Amchitka in the Aleutians. ”The skull was in a beach deposit at the top of a cliff, 100 feet above the sea. It was May and the sun was bright. Dark clouds were coming from Siberia to the west and as each passed over it would snow for 10 minutes. The snow would melt and I would keep digging. I was accompanied by two golden eagles whose mating dance would carry then from the beach below to heights that were beyond my vision. They were my only companions that day.” —Julie Quinn |
