S. Stillman Berry

Samuel Stillman Berry (March 16, 1887 – April 9, 1984)[1] was an American marine zoologist specialized in cephalopods.

S. Stillman Berry
S. Stillman Berry, seated holding a rare book from his collection, c. 1960s
Berry with a rare book from his collection, c. 1960s
Born(1887-03-16)March 16, 1887
Unity, Maine, United States
DiedApril 9, 1984(1984-04-09) (aged 97)
Winnecook ranch, near Harlowton, Montana[1]
EducationStanford University (B.S., Ph.D.), Harvard (M.S.)
Known forWork on cephalopods
Parent
  • Ralph Berry (father)
Scientific career
FieldsMarine zoology
Author abbrev. (zoology)Berry

Early life

Berry was born in Unity, Maine,[2] but the family home was the Winnecook Ranch in Montana, which had been founded by his father Ralph in 1880.[1] In 1897, he moved with his mother to Redlands, California.[1]

Berry received a B.S. (1909) from Stanford and his M.S. (1910) from Harvard. He then returned to Stanford for his Ph.D. work on cephalopods and got his doctorate in 1913.[1]

Career

From 1913 until 1915, he worked as a librarian and research assistant at the Scripps Institution for Biological Research in La Jolla, California.[3] This was the last paid employment he ever held in academia—all his later studies and expeditions were financed by the profits from the family ranch in Montana.[1]

From November 1946 to December 1969, Berry published his own journal, Leaflets in Malacology, which primary contained articles which he had written himself.[4]

Despite his independent status, he became a renowned malacologist, publishing 209 articles and establishing 401 mollusc taxa. His scientific publications dealt with chitons, cephalopods, and land snails.[5] Forty-seven of his published papers were about cephalopods.[5]

Berry also had an interest in horticulture, where he concentrated on the hybridization of irises and daffodils.[3] For some time, from the 1920s until the late 1940s, he ran a horticultural business from Winnecook Ranch, which he had taken over after the death of his father in 1911.[1] In 1917 he became the president of the Winnecook Ranch Company, a post he occupied until his death in 1984.[1]

Works

  • "Cephalopods of the genera Sepioloidea, Sepiadorium, and Idiosepius". Philippine Journal of Science. 1: 347–364. 1932. Retrieved 21 October 2021 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  • "The cephalopoda of the Hawaiian islands". Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries. 32: 257–362. 1912 – via Google Books.
  • Berry, S. Stillman (2016). "A New Sierran Pulmonate of the Genus Monadenia". Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. 54 (1).

See also

References