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Bruce Patterson - Greater Tsavo, Kenya
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Dr. Bruce Patterson, Ph.D.





MacArthur Curator of Mammals, Department of Zoology, The Field Museum

I study the origin, distribution and conservation of biodiversity, focusing on the mammals of southern continents, especially South America and Africa. In addition to working with the Tsavo Lion projects, I also work extensively in South America, in various biotic regions from the Straits of Magellan in the far south to the sweltering rainforests of the equator. My colleagues and I make general collections to document these rich and poorly known systems. We often discover new species of bats, rodents, and marsupials in these collections; even well known species contribute important new information on how distinctive these regions are, how their species originated, and how they are related to one another.

I was always interested in animals, from the time my mom read me Babar and Peter Rabbit stories. I brought home bunnies, snakes, and frogs as a kid in Western New York and started collecting moth specimens by the time I was 8. Although my first steady jobs were as a dishwasher and golf caddy, I became a seasonal zookeeper at the Buffalo Zoological Gardens at the age of 18, and have been working with animals ever since.

I studied birds as an undergraduate, and grasshoppers as a doctoral student, but most of my graduate work focused on mammals, especially chipmunks in western North America. I was fortunate to secure the Field Museum position at the age of 28 and have been here ever since.


To learn more about my current research, please visit
my website

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