10 November 1793 – 10 December 1877
Born: Wallingford, Connecticut.
Died: Rockport, Ohio.
Occupation: Physician; Naturalist; Malacologist. Probate Judge, Wallingford, 1818. Member of the Ohio Legislature 1828-1834. Trustee Western Reserve College, 1833-1835. Professor of Medicine, Med. College, Ohio. Founder Cleveland Medical College, 1843. Professor of Medicine 1843-1877.
Education: Yale University M.D., 1815.
Research Interests: Freshwater and land Mollusca.
Data from: Abbott, R.T., and M.E. Young (eds.). 1973. American Malacologists: A national register of professional and amateur malacologists and private shell collectors and biographies of early American mollusk workers born between 1618 and 1900. American Malacologists, Falls Church, Virginia. Consolidated/Drake Press, Philadelphia. 494 pp.
Published 6 papers on land and freshwater mollusks. Also widely published on fishes and herps. Kirtland’s water snake (Regina kirtlandii) named in his honor by Robert Kennicott in 1856.
Partial Bibliography
Kirtland, J.P. 1834. Observations on the sexual characters of the animals belonging to Lamarck’s family of naiades. American Journal of Science and Arts 26(1):117-120.
Kirtland, J.P. 1836. Observations on the sexual characters of the animals belonging to Lamarck’s family of naiades. Wieg. Arch. 1:236.
Kirtland, J.P. 1838. Report on the zoology of Ohio. A catalogue of the mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, Testacea, and Crustacea in Ohio. Second Annual Report, Geological Survey of Ohio 2:157-200.
Kirtland, J.P. 1840. Fragments of natural history. No. I. Habits of naiades. American Journal of Science and Arts 39(1):164-168.
Kirtland, J.P. 1851. Remarks on the sexes and habits of some of the acephalous bivalve Mollusca. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 5:85-91.