who was Nutting?

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Nutting's flycatcher

If you followed the blog of John Vanderpoel's attempt to break birding’s Big Year record of 745 species set by Sandy Komito in 1998, you perhaps already know that Vanderpoel finished 2011 a feather's weight shy of the mark.

His 744th bird of the calendar year was a Nutting's Flycatcher, (Myiarchus nuttingi) he and his brother found in Arizona on December 31.

Still 744 is a remarkable feat, second highest total ever.

You might wonder just who is the flycatcher normally found in Mexico and Costa Rica named to honor?

Charles Cleveland Nutting (1858 – 1927) or simply C.C. Nutting as he preferred, was an American zoologist who led various expeditions to Central America, Florida and Hawaii often taking his best students with him. He was professor of zoology and curator of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Iowa from 1886 to 1890. Noted for not only teaching his students a way to make a living but also a way to live, "soul values" he called it.

However, Nutting's most important papers deal with marine hydroids not flycatchers. He described 124 new species and beautifully illustrated his monograph on American hydroids. Hydrozoans are small, predatory animals related to jellyfish and corals. The most famous member of the group in my area are the freshwater jellyfish (Craspedacusta sowerbyi) found in Mead's Quarry at Ijams Nature Center.

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