The Steller's Jay, and several other species, was named for an 18th century naturalist/USFWS
A raucous, and beautiful, bird of the West is the Steller's Jay. It swoops down towards backyard bird feeders, sending all the finches and juncos, and occasionally Eurasian Collared-Doves, flitting away. But who was Steller, and why is his name attached to this radiant jay?
Georg Wilhelm Steller was an 18th century German who crammed a lot into his not quite 38 years. He was a botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer who arrived in Russia in 1734 while accompanying wounded war veterans there. In Russia, he met naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, whose influence led Steller to focus on natural science, according to Wikipedia.
During the summer of 1741, he traveled to the land now known as Alaska with Vitus Bering, whose name, geographers know, graces the Bering Strait.
According to historians, Steller was the first European naturalist to study Alaska's wildlife. Even though he was ashore just a short period of time, fewer than a dozen hours, he described six mammals and birds, most of which today carry his name: the Steller's jay, Steller's sea lion, Steller's eider, Steller's sea eagle, and Steller's sea cow.
And his name has been attached to other discoveries as well by others. There's the gumboot chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri), and Artemisia stelleriana, a mugwort, and a flowering plant, Stellera chamaejasme.
Steller's sea lion, Channel Islands National Park/NPS
Steller's eider, male and female, taken at Alaska SeaLife Center, Seward, Alaska/USGS,Laura Whitehouse
Comments
For the rest of the story -- and it is a remarkable one it is -- check out the book "Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition" (A Merloyd Lawrence Book).
"The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue. Until now recorded only in academic works, this 10-year venture, led by the legendary Danish captain Vitus Bering and including scientists, artists, mariners, soldiers, and laborers, discovered Alaska, opened the Pacific fur trade, and led to fame, shipwreck, and "one of the most tragic and ghastly trials of suffering in the annals of maritime and arctic history."
And many, many thanks for spelling Georg's name correctly throughout! (HINT to the uninitiated: It's not "Stellar.")