Joel Asaph Allen

Joel Asaph Allen (July 19, 1838 - August 29, 1921) was an American zoologist and ornithologist.

He studied at Harvard University under Louis Agassiz. He participated in one expedition to Brazil and in several others within the United States. In 1873 he was the head of the naturalists of the North Pacific Railroad expedition from Bismarck, North Dakota to the Yellowstone and back for the Smithsonian.Allen was the first curator of birds and mammals at the American Museum of Natural History (from 1885 on) and later the first head of its Department of Ornithology.

In 1886, he was one of the incorporators of the first Audubon Society, New York. He is also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the American Philosophical Society. From 1883 to 1886 he was President of the American Ornithologists' Union.

Allen's rule stating a correlation between body shape and climate has been formulated by him in 1877.

In addition to a great number of scientific papers, he is author of books:
* "Mammals and Winter Birds of Eastern Florida", (1871)
* "The American Bisons", (1876)
* "Monographs of North American Rodentia" (with Elliott Coues, 1877)
* "History of North American Pinnipedia", (1880)
* "Mammals of Patagonia", (1905)
* "The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Species", (1905)
* "Ontogenetic and Other Variations in Musk-Oxen" (1913).

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