William Stimpson

  William Stimpson (February 14, 1832–May 26, 1872) was a noted American scientist.

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Stimpson was born in Boston, Massachusetts and studied under the great naturalist Louis Agassiz.

He focused most of his studies on marine biology, particularly invertebrates. Starting when he was 21 years old, from 1853 to 1856, he collected various specimens in the Pacific Northwest. He then settled in Washington, D.C., where he founded the Megatherium Club at the Smithsonian Institution. When fellow club member Robert Kennicott left his post as director of the Academy of Science in Chicago, Stimpson went to that city to take his place. The academy was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and almost all of Stimpson's works and specimens were lost. He died the following year of tuberculosis.

Species named for him

• Rare Hawaiian Goby Fish Sicydium stimpsoni Gill, 1860
• Eel Bathycongrus stimpsoni Fowler, 1934
• Sun Starfish Solaster stimpsoni
• Stimpson coastal shrimp Heptacarpus stimpsoni
• Fossil - small aquatic arthropod Acanthotelson stimpsoni Meek & Worthen
• Striped sunstar Solaster stimpsoni
• Clam Mercenaria stimpsoni
• Yellow Cone Conus stimpsoni Dall, 1902
• Eyespot Rock Shrimp Sicyonia stimpsoni Bouvier, 1905
• Nudibranch mollusc Coryphella stimpsoni (Verrill 1879)
• Gastropod Pteropurpura stimpsoni (Adams, A., 1863)
• Gastropod Turritellopsis stimpsoni (Dall, 1919)

are a good sample of the species named for him.

References

• Stimpson biography from the Smithsonian Institution
• Biography and reproductions of some of Stimpson's illustrations