Carl Leavitt Hubbs

Carl Leavitt Hubbs (October 19, 1894 – June 30, 1979) was an American ichthyologist.

Biography

Youth

He was born in Williams, Arizona. He was the son of Charles Leavitt and Elizabeth (née Goss) Hubbs. His father had a wide variety of jobs (farmer, iron mine owner, newspaper owner). The family moved several times before settling in San Diego where he got his first taste of natural history. After his parents divorced in 1907, he lived with his mother who opened a private school in Redondo Beach, California. His maternal grandmother Jane Goble Goss, one of the first female doctors, showed Hubbs how to harvest shellfish and other sea creatures.

One of his teachers, impressed by Hubbs abilities in science, recommended that he study chemistry at the University of Berkeley. The family moved once more to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, George Bliss Culver, one of the many volunteers of David Starr Jordan, encouraged Hubbs to abandon his study of birds and instead to study fish, particularly those fish that inhabited the rivers of Los Angeles, which at that time had not been well researched. Hubbs completed his studies at Stanford University, following particularly the ichthyologist Charles Henry Gilbert, a disciple of Jordan. Gilbert becomes Hubbs's mentor gives him the responsibility of caring for a collection of fish from Stanford. During this same period Hubbs meets John Otterbein Snyder, another disciple of Jordan. Hubbs obtained his BA in 1916 and his Masters in 1917.