Thompson Van Hyning

c. 1910

Thompson Van Hyning (24 June 1861 – 15 November 1948) was an American physician and naturalist who contributed to malacology. He helped found and directed the Iowa State Museum from 1910 to 1914[1] and then moved to Gainesville and directed the Florida State Museum from 1914 to 1947. He played a role in the passing of the bill in 1917 that established the Florida State Museum. He added nearly 15,000 mollusc specimens to the collection before his retirement in 1947. A number of mollusc species have been named from his collections.[2][3]

Van Hyning worked on a Checklist of the molluscs of Florida but it was never published. Taxa named after Van Hyning include:[4]

  • Cerithiopsis vanhyningi Bartsch, 1918
  • Conus verrucosus vanhyningi Rehder, 1944
  • Cumingia tellinoides vanhyningi Rehder, 1939
  • Dinocardium robustum vanhyningi Clench & L.C. Smith, 1944
  • Lyogyrus vanhyningi Vanatta, 1934
  • Orinella vanhyningi Bartsch, 1944
  • Primovula (Pseudosimnia) vanhyningi Maxwell Smith, 1940

His son Oather C. Van Hyning (1901–1973) also became a naturalist with interests in the fishes and reptiles. Oather specialized in the reptiles of Florida and collected extensively, while a student, he was expelled for drinking alcohol from his laboratory and never completed his degree.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Van Hyning, T. (1911-01-01). "Building a Museum". Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science. 18 (1): 155–159. ISSN 0085-2236.
  2. ↑ Slapcinsky, John; Bemis, A.; Portell,R.W.; Auffenberg, K.; Paulay, G. (2025). "Rapid development and digitization of the Recent mollusk collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville". The Nautilus. 139 (3): 279–296.
  3. ↑ "History of the Herbarium". University of Florida Herbarium (FLAS). Retrieved 2026-05-21.
  4. ↑ "Thompson H. Van Hyning | Shellers From the Past and Present". www.conchology.be. Retrieved 2026-05-21.
  5. ↑ Davis, Frederick R. (2007). The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles. Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation Biology. Oxford University Press. p. 22.
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