| Roberto Donoso-Barros | |
| Birth Name: | Roberto Donoso-Barros |
| Birth Date: | October 5, 1921 |
| Birth Place: | Santiago, Chile |
| Death Date: | August 2, 1975 |
| Death Place: | Concepción, Chile |
| Alma Mater: | University of Chile |
Roberto Donoso-Barros (October 5, 1921 – August 2, 1975) was a Chilean zoologist, naturalist, and herpetologist.[1] Jaime Péfaur listed his birth year as 1922.[2]
Donoso-Barros was born in Santiago, Chile. He attended the University of Chile in Santiago, earning his M.D. from the school in 1947.[3]
Donoso-Barros joined the faculty of the University of Chile in 1954. In 1965, he became a professor at the University of Concepción. He also worked at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, and at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.
Donoso-Barros was a prolific herpetological authority in Chile. In 1966, he published Reptiles de Chile which collected and reported on all lizard species described to date in Chile.
Species described by Donoso-Barros include:
A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a different genus.
The gecko Gonatodes ligiae remains somewhat mysterious as it was only described in a short note in which Donoso-Barros did not explain the name, but it is probably named after some person, as many other species he described. However, the ominous Ligia remains a mystery.[4]
Donoso-Barros was awarded the Abate Molina Prize by the Chilean Academy of Sciences in 1966. He was also awarded the Atenea Award in 1966 for Reptiles de Chile.[5]
A proposed subspecies of Chelonoidis chilensis, C. chilensis donosobarrosi, is named for Donoso-Barros. A species of lizard, Liolaemus donosobarrosi, is named after him.
Donoso-Barros had five daughters and two sons. However, in his obituary, Jaime Péfaur only mentions 6 children, namely Constanza, Roberto, Paulina, Marcela, Valeria and Cecilia. Péfaur did not mention his son Alvaro, after which Donoso-Barros named one species, Pristidactylus alvaroi,[6] as he dedicated names to all his other children (except Roberto), namely
Donoso-Barros is the grandfather of Gaspar Domínguez Donoso (son of his daughter Valeria)[9] and of Chilean-British herpetologist Daniel Pincheira-Donoso.
Donoso-Barros died on August 2, 1975, as a result of a traffic accident.