Guy Dollman

Captain John Guy Dollman BA, FLS (1886–1942), known as Guy Dollman, was a British zoologist and taxonomist. Dollman's tree mouse and Dollman's vlei rat are named after him.

Life and work

Elder son of the artist John Charles Dollman, Guy Dollman was born on 4 September 1886 and attended St Paul's School, winning a scholarship to study at St John's College Cambridge. In February 1907, while still a student, he was employed by the Department of Zoology at the British Museum (Natural History), where he spent most of his working life as Assistant Keeper of Mammals.

In 1912, on an expedition to Vietnam, he discovered and named the Tonkin snub-nosed langur. He joined the British Army in 1915, and obtained a commission in the 19th London Regiment. He did not see active service abroad as he was injured in a bomb accident. He returned to the museum in 1919. He was a member of the panel of advisers to the British delegation to the 1933 International Conference for the Preservation of the Flora and Fauna of Africa, said to have been "the high point of institutionalised global nature protection before the Second World War", and according to his obituary in The Times Dollman "had a decisive voice on the animal species to be scheduled for total or partial protection". He travelled and wrote extensively with Walter Rothschild; their publications included New mammals from Dutch New Guinea (1932) and a study of tree kangaroos The Genus Dendrolagus (1936). He was also an accomplished artist, exhibiting pictures at the Royal Academy, and illustrated many of his own scientific writings.