[62] Hornaday strongly objected to this proposal, describing Kuser as an "evil genius" who was attempting to steal Beebe away from his duties at the zoo. Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis is now regarded as prescient for its prediction of both the anatomy and likely gliding posture of Microraptor gui,[274] which Richard O. Prum has described as "[looking] as if it could have glided straight out of the pages of Beebes notebooks. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New York Zoological Society, his deep dives in the Bathysphere, and his prolific scientific writing for academic and popular audiences. Applying the same techniques to studying the Hudson Gorge that he had used in the Galpagos, Beebe encountered a surprising variety of sea animals, many of which had previously been thought to be exclusive to the tropics. Using Kalacoon as his base of operations, Beebe performed a novel type of study: methodically dissecting a small area of jungle, and all of the animals which inhabit it, from the top of the canopy to below the ground. [179] Barton was often resentful of this, believing Beebe to be deliberately hogging the fame. [] Without telling him so, we must take care of him."[104]. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time and has been highly influential. [261] Carson dedicated her 1951 book The Sea Around Us to Beebe, writing "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe. [271], Gerhard Heilmann discussed Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis at considerable length in his 1926 book The Origin of Birds. [207] During his work at Rancho Grande, Beebe broke his leg in a fall from a ladder, and the forced immobility which resulted from having his leg in a cast presented him with a new opportunity for observing the area's wildlife. Passed away at the Charles Lemoyne Hospital at the age of 62 after a brief but courageously fought battle. [278] However, because Jocelyn's research required her to travel north for extended periods, by 1965 she had little time to keep the station running. [105] Beebe subsequently wrote several articles describing his war experience for Scribner's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly. The last chapter was written by Blair and was an explanation of how to plan and execute a vacation in the wilderness. This expedition was Beebe's introduction to the tropics, with which he developed a long-standing fascination. This study yielded a collection of 3,776 fish of 136 species, many of them also new to science. [208] His immobility also presented him with the opportunity to spend hours at a time observing a pair of bat falcons through binoculars, documenting the behavior of their two chicks and every prey item fed to them by their parents. [95], In 1916, Beebe traveled to Georgetown in pursuit of his earlier goal of establishing a permanent field research station in Guiana. [216] In 1949, Beebe bought this estate to use a permanent research station to replace Rancho Grande. "[258] Due to Beebe's renewed emphasis on field research at a time when laboratory studies were becoming the dominant trend in biology, more recent field researchers such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller are also sometimes considered his intellectual descendants. [169] The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 feet (923m) on August 15, 1934, lasted until it was broken by Barton in 1949. "[196], Although Beebe continued to use Nonsuch Island as his base of operations throughout the 1930s, with the onset of World War II in 1939 it was announced that the ferry linking Bermuda to New York would soon be making its final run, requiring Beebe and his team to hastily abandon their station there. [104] Beebe generally did not make the exact nature of his military service clear in his writings about it, although he expressed his general dismay at the realities of the war. To plant a tree in memory of William D Beebe, please visit Tribute Store . Reproductions of the illustrations were in the process of being printed when World War I began, holding up the completion of the project for the next four years. [238][239] According to his wishes, he was buried in Mucurapo Cemetery in Port of Spain. He is also remembered for several theories he proposed about avian evolution which are now regarded as having been ahead of their time, particularly his 1915 hypothesis that the evolution of bird flight passed through a four-winged or "Tetrapteryx" stage, which has been supported by the 2003 discovery of Microraptor gui. [235], In an account of his final meeting with Beebe, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. describes how during Beebe's last few years he gradually succumbed to illness, eventually becoming nearly immobile and incapable of speech. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. [213] He was by this point the only remaining member of the zoo's original staff,[214] and had produced more scholarly papers and publicity than any other employee. [49] In 1906 Beebe presented his own collection, which had grown to 990 specimens during his earlier years as a collector, as a gift to the zoo for educational and research purposes. [209], Although Beebe and his team enjoyed rewarding seasons at Rancho Grande in 1945 and 1946, they did not return there in 1947. The divorce was granted on August 29, 1913, after Blair had spent the minimum requirement of six months as a resident in Reno. [187], Beebe continued to conduct marine research after 1934, but he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere and that further drives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. Due to Elswyth's tendency to misrepresent her age, conflicting accounts exist of how old she was when she and Beebe were married,[155] ranging from 23[91] to 28. An additional difficulty in 1931 was the death of Beebe's father, and Beebe left Nonsuch Island for a week to attend his father's funeral. [59][60] Beebe summarized this expedition in his book Our Search for a Wilderness, which was enthusiastically well-reviewed. Following his Bathysphere dives, Beebe returned to the tropics and began to focus his study on the behavior of insects. [205], Rancho Grande was located at a mountain pass in a branch of the Andes known as the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which was an important migration route for butterflies, and the station proved very lucrative in the study of insects. [151] He later went so far as to suggest that beachfront homes would someday contain their own underwater gardens, to be experienced with the help of diving helmets: If you wish to make a garden, choose some beautiful slope or reef grotto and with a hatchet chop and pry off coral boulders with waving purple sea-plumes and golden sea-fans and great particolored anemones. The product of Jocelyn Crane's search for a potential research station in Trinidad and Tobago was a house on a hill overlooking the Arima Valley, which was known as Verdant Vale. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. She was born on November 26, 1937, in Plainfield, NJ, the daughter of the late William H. Vermilye and Ruth Anderson Vermilye. [48], Although Beebe continued to shoot animals when it was necessary for examining them scientifically, he no longer regarded adding to a collection as a valid reason to take a life. (Hall) Beebe, he married Janice Sue "Jan" Gainer on September 20, 1968 in Pekin. [246] As a result of his much-publicized divorce from Blair and his later marriage to Elswyth, he was also known for his stormy relationships with women. [268] One possibility is that although these animals indeed exist, so much remains to be discovered about life in the deep ocean that these animals have yet to be seen by anyone other than him. [202] For these reasons, Beebe did not return to Caripito after his first season there. In return, Beebe would pay for other expenses such as chartering a ship to raise and lower the sphere, and as the owner of the sphere, Barton would accompany Beebe on his expeditions in it. [4][5] Early in his life, his family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where he began to acquire both his fascination with the natural world and his tendency to record everything he saw. [148] Within a hundred days, Beebe and his team had created a catalog of species inhabiting the area nearly as long as what had been assembled on the neighboring island of Puerto Rico in the past four hundred years. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of William Beebe to pay them a last tribute. [107], Beebe's position in the Zoological Society changed in 1918: He was given the title of Honorary Curator of Birds and was made the director of the newly created Department of Tropical Research. He was 69 years old and. [63] However, the zoo ultimately decided in Kuser's favor, partly because the scientific papers produced by Beebe's trip to Guiana had been beneficial to the zoo's reputation. Predeceased by his father Ford Beebe, mother Anna Fraser Beebe, brother Dr. David Beebe, sister Janice Lise Beebe, niece Anna Beebe and brother-in-law Dave Lavallee. This was the first time a biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment and set several successive records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human, the deepest of which stood until it was broken by Barton 15 years later. We are sad to announce that on July 6, 2022, at the age of 64, William W. Beebe of Silver Springs, Florida passed away. [163][164], These articles caught the attention of Otis Barton, an engineer who had long admired Beebe and who had his own ambition to become a deep-sea explorer. To plant a tree in memory of David William Beebe, III, please visit Tribute Store . Letters and testimonials poured in from other scientists with whom Beebe had worked, attesting to their admiration of him and his influence on them. View Obituary & Service Information Who Where Receive obituaries Wilma Campbell February 22, 2023 (87 years old) View obituary Connie McAfee February 22, 2023 (61 years old) View obituary In addition to the open nature of their marriage, Elswyth described in a 1940s interview with Today's Woman magazine that she enjoyed the knowledge that Beebe was attractive to women. We are sad to announce that on November 26, 2021, at the age of 79, John William Coulter of Beebe, Arkansas passed away. Burial will follow at Cimarron Valley Cemetery under direction of Cordry-Gritz Funeral Home. Service for William D. "Bill" Beebe, age 76, of Enid is Friday, September 11, 2020 at 10:00 am at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. [73] Continuing without Horsfall, Beebe and Blair traveled to Batavia in Java,[74] to the island of Madura just to the north, and to Belitung between Borneo and Sumatra. Marguerite. Beebe described his idea in a 1915 paper published in Zoologica, titled "A Tetrapteryx Stage in the Ancestry of Birds". [227], During Beebe's later years, Simla was an important gathering point for researchers in many other areas of biology. [269], In addition to his descriptions of new taxa, the crab Leptuca beebei (Crane, 1941), commonly known as Beebe's fiddler crab, was named in his honor. [143] The book which resulted from this, titled Pheasants: Their Lives and Homes (also known by the title Pheasants of the World), was released in 1926 and received the John Burroughs Medal. Beebe returned to Rancho Grande in 1948, where he completed several technical papers about the migration patterns of birds and insects, as well as a comprehensive study of the area's ecology which he coauthored with Jocelyn Crane. [281] In 1974, Beebe's property was donated to the newly established Asa Wright Nature Center. [215][249] Among the most significant of Beebe's influences on other researchers was Rachel Carson, who regarded Beebe as both a friend and an inspiration. William Beebe at age 18, at his home in East Orange Charles William Beebe was born in Brooklyn, New York, son of the newspaper executive Charles Beebe. [169] The Bathysphere was lowered into the ocean using a steel cable, and a second cable carried a phone line which the Bathysphere's occupants used to communicate with the surface, as well as an electrical cable for a searchlight to illuminate animals outside the Bathysphere. [104][110] In January 1919 Roosevelt, who was severely ill by this point, wrote to Beebe from his hospital bed congratulating Beebe on the publication of his monograph. [202] One important study which resulted from this region was the first documentation of rhinoceros beetles using their horns in competition between males, proving that their horns were an adaptation for sexual selection rather than for defense against predators. One letter from the Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr wrote that Beebe's work had been an inspiration to his own, particularly A Monograph of the Pheasants and Beebe's books about jungle wildlife.[215]. [272] Beebe, however, continued to advance his Tetrapteryx hypothesis as late as the 1940s. [206] Creole Petroleum, a Venezuelan spin-off of Standard, agreed to cover the cost of the station and finished a small portion of the vast structure for Beebe and his team to use. For researchers in many other areas of biology how to plan and a... 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