John Ernest Randall


John Ernest "Jack" Randall was an American ichthyologist and a leading authority on coral reef fishes. Randall described over 800 species and authored 11 books and over 900 scientific papers and popular articles. He spent most of his career working in Hawaii. He died in April 2020 at the age of 95.

Career

John Ernest Randall was born in Los Angeles, California in May 1924, to John and Mildred Randall. In high school he acquired a love of marine fish after a visit to the tide pools of Palos Verdes and, after serving stateside in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army during the post-D-Day years of WWII, received his BA degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1950. In 1955 he earned his Ph.D in ichthyology from the University of Hawaii.
After spending two years as a research associate at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, he moved to Miami, Florida and worked briefly at the University of Miami's Marine Laboratory, alongside C. Richard Robins who remained there for his career. From 1961 to 1965 he worked as Professor of Zoology and also, from 1962 to 1965, as the director of the Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Puerto Rico. From 1965 to 1966 he served as the director of the Pacific Foundation of Marine Research's Oceanic Institute, Makapuu Point, Hawaii. From 1966 to 1984 he worked as an ichthyologist at the Bishop Museum, becoming chairman of the museum's zoology department in 1975 and gaining the title of Senior Ichthyologist in 1984. He concurrently served as a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii.
In 2005 he was awarded the first Bleeker Award in Systematic Ichthyology at the Seventh Indo-Pacific Fish Conference in Taipei, Taiwan.

Works

  • Fishes of the Gilbert Islands, Atoll Res. Bull. 1955, No. 47, Pac. Sci, Bd., Nat. Acad. Sci., Wash D. C.
  • A Contribution to the Biology of the Acanthuridae
  • A review of the labrid fish genus Labroides, with descriptions of two new species and notes on ecology. Pac. Sci.
  • Let a Sleeping Shark Lie, 1961
  • Three New Butterflyfishes from Southeast Oceania, 1975Les noms de poissons marquisiens, 1978Three New Labrid Fishes of the Genus Cirrhilabrus from the Southwestern Pacific
  • Caribbean Reef Fishes, 1983
  • Pomacanthus Rhomboides, the Valid Name for the South African Angelfish Previously Known as Pomacanthus Striatus
  • Coastal Fishes of Oman
  • Shore Fishes of Hawaii
  • Annoted Checklist of the Inshore Fishes of the Ogasawara Islands Review of the Indo-Pacific Fish Genus Odontanthias, with Descriptions of Two New Species and a Related New Genus in Volume 38 of Indo-Pacific fishes, Bishop Museum, 2006Revision of the soleid fish genus Pardachirus, in Indo-Pacific fishes, Bishop Museum, 2007Revision of the Indo-Pacific Scorpionfish Genus Scorpaenopsis: With Descriptions of Eight New Species in Indo-Pacific fishes
  • Revision of the Goatfish Genus Parupeneus with Descriptions of Two New Species in Indo-Pacific fishesReview of the Indo-Pacific Fishes of the Genus Odontanthias, with Descriptions of Two New Species and a Related New Genus in Indo-Pacific fishes' in Ichthyological Bulletin of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology; No. 45. J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology, Rhodes University.
  • ' in Ichthyological Bulletin of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology; No. 69. J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology, Rhodes University.
  • Parenti, P. and J.E. Randall, 2000. An annotated checklist of the species of the labroid fish families Labridae and Scaridae. Ichthyol. Bull. J.L.B. Smith Inst. Ichthyol. :1-97.

Taxon described by him

  • See :Category:Taxa named by John Ernest Randall

Taxa named in his honor

Randall has had over 60 taxa named in his honor, among them are: