William Louis Abbott (1860-1936)

Namesake of: Abbott's Gibbon (Hylobates abbotti)

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- American naturalist, doctor, explorer, ornithologist

- Used private wealth for scientific exploration.

- Collected specimens around the world and sent many to the Smithsonian Institute.

William Louis Abbott was, in the words of a contemporary, "one of the greatest field naturalists America has produced." Although he did not engage in taxonomic analysis, his collecting activities were unparalleled in extent and scope, making available for study by Smithsonian naturalists plants, land shells, ethnological material, and vertebrates of all classes, but particularly birds and small mammals. Abbott donated more than 10,000 of the latter. Species described as new number 462, and more than twenty bear his name. Perhaps no other single collector provided as much for the Smithsonian Institution.