Jay M. Savage

Jay Mathers Savage (August 1928 – November 3, 2025) was an American herpetologist known for his research on reptiles and amphibians of Central America. He was a past president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Southern California Academy of Sciences. He received his bachelor's (1950), master's (1954), and doctoral (1955) degrees from Stanford University. He produced around 200 publications, including the books Evolution (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968) and The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two Continents, between Two Sea (University of Chicago Press, 2002). He was an emeritus professor at the University of Miami and adjunct professor at San Diego State University.

He was the first to describe, in 1966, the now-extinct golden toad (Incilius periglenes) of Monteverde, Costa Rica.[1]

Savage died on November 3, 2025, at the age of 97.[2]

Taxa named in his honor

Savage is commemorated in the scientific names of 18 animal species.

Amphibians

The frog genus Barycholos (from the Greek word for "savage")[3][4][5]

Reptiles

Fish

Rhamphocetichthys savagei Paxton, 1989, Savage's bird-snouted whalefish, a species of flabby whalefish.[6]

References

  1. ^ Savage, Jay M. (1965). "An extraordinary new toad (Bufo) from Costa Rica". Revista de Biología Tropical. 14: 153–167. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
  2. ^ "2026 Events Honoring Jay M. Savage at JMIH". Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 2026-02-26. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  3. ^ Heyer, W. Ronald (1969). "Studies on the genus Leptodactylus (Amphibia, Leptodactylidae) III. A redefinition of the genus Leptodactylus and a description of a new genus of leptodactylid frogs" (PDF). Contributions in Science. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (155): 1–14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-06-29. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
  4. ^ Donnelly, Maureen A. (2013). "Jay M. Savage". Copeia. 2013 (4): 757–767. doi:10.1643/OT-13-008. S2CID 86307298.
  5. ^ a b 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. ("Savage", p. 233).
  6. ^ Scharpf, Christopher; Lazara, Kenneth J. (22 September 2018). "Family CETOMIMIDAE Goode & Bean 1895 (Whalefishes)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 10 October 2025.

Further reading


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