All posts in Featured Books

In the 19th century naturalists and enlightened amateurs in the U.S. cultivated an understanding of the natural world of this new country by documenting new and known varieties of plant and animal species. One of these scientific pursuits was conchology- the study and collection of marine, freshwater and terrestrial shells.

It is the study of crustaceans, a group of arthropods that includes lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, barnacles and crabs. One of the pre-eminent carcinologists (a scientist who studies crustaceans) of the first half of the twentieth century was Waldo LaSalle Schmitt. Born on this day (June 25) in 1887 in Washington, D.C., Schmitt held various positions within the United States Department of Agriculture, the Smithsonian, and the United States Bureau of Fisheries throughout his career.

Charles Darwin will forever be remembered for his theory of evolution by means of natural selection and the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859. But Darwin’s scientific contributions extend even beyond this monumental achievement.