A Species in Your Name for a Lifetime of Service? Priceless
Now here’s a heart-warming story to make us forget, at least for a time, all the depressing stats regarding U.S. workers: a guy who spent 37 years as the mailroom supervisor for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadephia has received, as a thank-you … his very own species of catfish.
Frank Gallagher, who oversaw the academy’s mailroom for nearly four decades and earned a reputation as the go-to guy for learning who was doing what — “They used to call me ‘the grapevine,’ ” Gallagher said — has been immortalized as the inspiration for Rhinodoras gallagheri, a new species of catfish described Mark Sabaj Pérez, a fish scientist with the academy.
And why would Pérez forego his own bid at taxonomic fame for the academy’s mailroom supervisor?
“I wanted to honor Frank for his many years of dedicated service to the global community of taxonomists and systematists in handling the shipping and receiving of countless loans of biological specimens,” sad Pérez, who manages the academy’s collection of 1.3 million fish. “I was impressed by Frank’s dedication, his love for fellow employees, and his keen interest in the science we do. I simply thought, here is a guy who should be honored with his own catfish.”
Pérez found two specimens of the fish in the academy’s collection a few years ago and recognized them as a distinct species from other the Orinoco thicklip catfish, which are native to the Orinoco basin of Venezuela and Colombia.
Kudos to Pérez for such a cool gesture, and hats off to Gallagher for his strange foresight. As his staff members recall, he used to tell them, “I’ve been here so long, I should be part of the collection by now.” And now, in a strange catfish sort of way, he is.
