Eleanor Mary Ord Laurie
British mammalogist
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Eleanor Mary Ord Laurie Isserlis (14 January 1919 - 17 March 2009)[1] was a British mammalogist.
Early life
Laurie was born in 1919[1] to parents Elinor Beatrice Ord and Robert Douglas Laurie. Her father was head of the Zoology Department at Aberystwyth University from 1918 until his retirement in 1940.[2]
Education and career
Laurie was the head of the Mammal Department at the British Museum of Natural History.[1] She graduated from St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1942 with a Master of Science degree. In its 1949–1950 issue, the St Hugh's College Chronicle noted that she was appointed Senior Scientific Officer at the British Museum in its Zoology Department.[3] She became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1950;[4] she withdrew from the Society in 1958.[5]
Species described
Laurie described a number of new mammal species, including:
- Dactylopsila tatei Laurie, 1952[6]
- Microperoryctes papuensis (Laurie, 1952)[7]
- Hipposideros inexpectatus Laurie & Hill, 1954[8]
- Miniopterus shortridgei Laurie & Hill, 1956[9]
Selected publications
- Laurie, E. M.; Hill, J. E. (1954). List of land mammals of New Guinea, Celebes and adjacent islands 1758-1952. Trustees of the British Museum.
- Laurie, E. M. O. (1946). "The reproduction of the house-mouse (Mus musculus) living in different environments". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 133 (872): 248–281. Bibcode:1946RSPSB.133..248L. doi:10.1098/rspb.1946.0012. PMID 20994890.
- Southern, H. N.; Laurie, E. M. O. (1946). "The House-Mouse (Mus musculus) in Corn Ricks". The Journal of Animal Ecology. 15 (2): 134. doi:10.2307/1554. JSTOR 1554.
- Laurie, E. M. O. (1946). "The Coypu (Myocastor coypus) in Great Britain". The Journal of Animal Ecology. 15 (1): 22–34. doi:10.2307/1622. JSTOR 1622.
Personal life
On 29 December 1949,[3] she married Alexander Isserlis, who would become Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1970. Together, they had two daughters.[10]
Honours
In 2009, Helgen and Helgen named a new species of mouse after Laurie, Pseudohydromys eleanorae, recommending the common name of Laurie's moss mouse.[1]