Indiana Biological Survey

Division of Crustaceans

Astacologists Influential in Indiana

• Oliver P. Hay
  
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• Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. - March 29, 1914 - March 22, 1994

  Horton Hobbs, Jr.

  Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. was born in Alachua County, Florida on March 29, 1914. He enrolled at the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1931 with the intention of studying music. During his freshman year he studied the anatomy of the crayfish for a required course. When Horton was assigned a specimen that was too decomposed to show its internal structures, he solved the problem by going to a local creek and catching his own specimens. One was dissected and a few remaining individuals were placed in a jar and left on his desk pending release. By chance, a male and female were present and they soon mated. The female deposited eggs, which subsequently hatched. As the semester progressed, and the drama of crayfish life history unfolded, Horton became more and more interested, and, by the end of the semester, he had decided to work on crayfishes rather than music.

  He earned a BS (1934), and continued his studies, receiving a MS (1936) and PhD (1940) at Gainesville. He taught at the University of Florida from 1937--1946 when he became a faculty member at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville). While at UVA, he served as director of the Mountain Lake Biological Station from 1956-1962. In 1962, he left Charlottesville to be the head curator of zoology at the United States National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. In 1964, Horton was appointed senior zoologist to ease his workload, a change required by chronic heart disease. He retired from the NMNH in 1984, but continued as Zoologist Emeritus.

  Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. published 211 papers and abstracts, including a number of monographs and other book-length works. In these publications, which span a period of over 50 years, he established our modern system of crayfish systematics, and made significant advances in the knowledge of distribution and evolution. Although crayfishes were his primary research topic, Dr. Hobbs published numerous papers on the entocytherid ostracods (largely commensals of crayfishes), with several other significant papers on other decapod crustaceans (shrimps and crabs). In his six decade career Horton described 286 species, 38 genera and subgenera, and one new family. Dr. Hobbs was known as a field biologist that collected extensively in surface and subterranean waters. Photographs of him in the field depict him wearing white clothing and a bow tie! Nobody knows how many specimens he personally collected, but when he arrived at the Smithsonian Institution in 1962, his own collection included about 80,000 specimens. Dr. Hobbs was a true southern gentleman!

  Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. passed away on March 22, 1994, succumbing to heart disease, which he battled for over 30 years. His legacy of research is extraordinary. His research impacted North American and global knowledge of crayfishes and entocytherid ostracods. Many of the studies that he published included species known to inhabit Indiana. Collections at the United States Museum of Natural History include many collections from Indiana showing that he made several collecting trips to our State.

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• Horton H. Hobbs, III

  Horton Hobbs, III.

  Horton H. Hobbs, III is the son of legendary astacologist Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. Horton H. Hobbs, III received his B.A. degree from the University of Richmond, M.S. degree from Mississippi State University and a Ph.D. from Indiana University. Horton H. Hobbs, III joined the faculty of Wittenburg College in 1976. Dr. Hobbs teaching and research includes limnology, with particular emphasis on stream benthic community dynamics and biospeleology. His research on cave ecosystems has been recognized with distinction. He is a member of the Cave Research Foundation and is a Fellow and past director of the National Speleological Society. Hobbs has served as a biologist for the Academy of Natural Sciences on river survey projects. He was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship for research at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and has received numerous grants from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for research in Ohio caves. He is a Fellow of the Explorer's Club and the Ohio Academy of Science

  While in graduate school at Indiana University, Dr. Hobbs became interested in cave ecosystems and particularly in the adaptations and evolution of cave-dwelling organisms. His dissertation focused on the decapod crustaceans (e. g., crayfishes, shrimps, crabs) that are adapted to the food-limited darkness of the subterranean environment. His studies of Indiana caves is among the richest data available, and includes life history, and mark and recapture information for cave inhabiting species. He has furthered this research interest, which has enabled him to conduct studies in a variety of countries including the United States, Bahamas, Bermuda, Hawaii, Mexico, several Caribbean islands, Central America, Eastern and Western Europe, and Canada

  Dr. Horton H. Hobbs, III, is concerned about anthropogenic impacts to surface, as well as subsurface, aquatic environments. He has been collaborating with the U.S. Department of Interior (National Park Service) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Forest Service) on research projects in the southeastern and midwestern United States that assess the effects of human activities on cave communities. He is studying Candidate Species (organisms potentially to be placed on the Federal Endangered Species List) that inhabit caves in southern Ohio. He has recently described two new cave-adapted species from the Ozarks.

  Horton H. Hobbs, III is an author of more than 190 professional articles and has delivered more than 75 professional papers.

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• Raymond Felix Jezerinac

  Ray Jezerinac

  
  
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