Early twentieth-century mammal collecting in Africa: The Smithsonian-Roosevelt East African Expedition of 1909-1910

This paper deals with the scientific contributions made by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and the three mammalogists attached to the Smithsonian-Roosevelt East African Expedition of 1909-1910. These individuals included Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Edgar Alexander Mearns (1856-1916), an old friend of Roosevelt’s and a retired Army surgeon-naturalist; Edmund Heller (1875-1947), long-time field naturalist with previous experience in Africa, and J. Alden Loring (1871-1947), a veteran field collector in the United States. They joined Roosevelt and his son Kermit (1889-1943), in the senior Roosevelt’s efforts to collect large game mammal specimens for the United States National Museum. Washington, DC. The group also observed and collected more than 160 species of carnivores, ungulates, rodents, insectivores, and bats. Departing New York shortly after Roosevelt’s tenure as President of the United States ended in March 1909, the party debarked at Mombasa in April, and spent most of the next year in Kenya and Uganda. They also visited Sudan before the expedition ended at Khartoum in March 1910. Other subjects discussed include the expedition’s objectives and financing, the information gathered by expedition members and the publications which resulted.