Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala
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Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala (1900–1976) was a Sri Lankan paleontologist, zoologist, and artist.
Early life and education
He was born in Colombo, the son of Sir Paul Edward Pieris, civil servant and scholar, and Lady Hilda Obeyesekere Pieris. He had younger brother, the painter Justin Pieris Deraniyagala and a sister Miriam Pieris Deraniyagala, a performing artist on her own right, her son is the Sri Lankan cellist Rohan de Saram. He was educated at S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a BA in 1922 and a MA in 1923. He entered Harvard University for a year where he was awarded MA in 1924.
Career
He specialised in fauna and human fossils of the Indian subcontinent. From 1939 to 1963 he was the Director of the National Museum of Ceylon, and from 1961 to 1964 he was also the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Vidyodaya University.
He described several fossils and proposed scientific names for species and subspecies, with several now identified as dubious, including:
- Sri Lankan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sinhaleyus) in 1936 for a fossil found in Ratnapura District.[1]
- Sri Lankan hippopotamus (Hexaprotodon sinhaleyus) in 1937[2]
- Sri Lanka lion (Leo leo sinhaleyus) in 1939 for two fossil teeth found at Kuruwita.[1] However, the information about the teeth is not sufficient to determine whether it differs from other subspecies.[3]
- Panthera tigris sudanensis in 1951 for a tiger skin that he saw in a Cairo bazaar. When he asked the shop owner for the origin of this specimen, he was told that the animal was shot in Sudan.[4] Vratislav Mazák thought it likely that the skin was smuggled from Iran or Turkey to Egypt and commented "the situation is half-humorous, half-ironic".[5]
- Javan elephant (Elephas maximus sondaicus) in 1955 based on an illustration of a carving on the Buddhist monument of Borobudur in Java.[6] It is considered synonymous with the Indian elephant (E. m. indicus).[7]
- Balangoda Man (Homo sapiens balangodensis) in 1955[citation needed]
- Sri Lankan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros kagavena) in 1956[citation needed]
- Sri Lankan gaur (Bibos sinhaleyus) in 1962[2]
During his trips to China, he studied the Chinese alligator and published a new genus name for it. In the scientific field of herpetology he described many new species of lizards and snakes.[8][better source needed]
He served as President of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1952 to 1955.[9]
Deraniyagala is commemorated in the scientific names of three species of Sri Lankan reptiles: Aspidura deraniyagalae, Lankascincus deraniyagalae, and Nessia deraniyagalai.[10]
Family
He was married to Prini Molamure; their son Siran Upendra Deraniyagala is also a famous scientist, specialising in archeology.
See also
References
- ^ a b Deraniyagala, P. E. P. (1939). "Some fossil animals from Ceylon, Part II". Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 34: 231–239.
- ^ a b Deraniyagala, P. E. P. (1963). "Some mammals of the extinct Ratnapura Fauna of Ceylon Part V, with reconstructions of the hippopotamus and the gaur". Spolia Zeylanica. 30: 5–25.
- ^ Manamendra-Arachchi, K.; Pethiyagoda, R.; Dissanayake, R.; Meegaskumbura, M. (2005). "A second extinct big cat from the late Quaternary of Sri Lanka". The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Supplement No. 12: 423–434.
- ^ Deraniyalaga, P. E. P. (1951). "Does the tiger inhabit the Sudan?". Spolia Zeylanica. 26: 159.
- ^ Mazák, V. (1980). Velké kočky a gepardi. Praha: Státní zemědělské nakladatelství.
- ^ Deraniyagala, P. E. P. (1955). Some Extinct Elephants, Their Relatives and the Two Living Species. Colombo: Ceylon Natural History Museum.
- ^ Shoshani, J. (2005). "Subspecies Elephas maximus indicus". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
- ^ "Deraniyagala". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
- ^ "Past Presidents". Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
- ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Deraniyagala", p. 70).
External links
- Genealogy of the Deraniyagala family, including a photo of Dr. Paul E. P. Deraniyagala
- Dr. Paul E. P. Deraniyagala and his son's work, including two drawings by the former
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- 1900 births
- 1976 deaths
- People from Colombo
- Academics of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura
- Alumni of S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Harvard University alumni
- Sinhalese academics
- Sri Lankan anthropologists
- Sinhalese biologists
- Sinhalese zoologists
- Ceylonese Knights Bachelor
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- 20th-century zoologists
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