Charles Otis Whitman
American zoologist (1842–1910)
Charles Otis Whitman (December 6, 1842 – December 14, 1910) was an American zoologist, who was influential to the founding of classical ethology (study of animal behavior). In 1888, he was the founding director of the Marine Biological Laboratory. A dedicated educator who preferred to teach a few research students at a time, he made major contributions in the areas of evolution and embryology of worms, comparative anatomy, heredity, and animal behaviour. He was known as the "Father of Zoology" in Japan.
Biography
Whitman was born in Woodstock, Maine. His parents were Adventist pacifists and prevented his efforts to enlist in the Union army in 1862. He worked as a part-time teacher and converted to Unitarianism. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1868. Following graduation, Whitman became principal of the Westford Academy, a small Unitarian-oriented college preparatory school outside Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1872 he moved to Boston and taught a variety of subjects at English High School.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Otis Whitman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.