Martin Humphrey Moynihan ’48

Martin Moynihan, an authority on animal behavior who built the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama into a world-class scientific center, died Dec. 3, 1996, in Albi, France. He was 68.

Martin joined us from Horace Mann-Lincoln School in NYC. He graduated in June 1950 with highest honors in biology. He was Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. Charles Rogers directed his senior thesis, which was illustrated by a series of exquisite bird paintings. Martin was a first-rate artist. He went on to earn his PhD in zoology the next year at Oxford. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard when he accepted the Panama assignment.

Martin was a field biologist who roamed the world to observe animal behavior. He swam along with reef

squid in the warm waters off Panama, with a waterproof notebook. He undertook a study of New World monkeys that took him through South America. In recent years he had his eyes on hornbill, kingfishers, and pheasants.

His scores of papers on evolution and animal communication appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and other scientific publications. Among his books were The New World Primates: Adaptive Radiation and the Evolution of Social Behavior, Languages and Intelligence, and Communication and Non-Communication Among Cephalopods. He received the Smithsonian's Joseph Henry Medal, among many honors, and was named consultant to the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

To his widow, Olga F. Linares, and to his colleague Egbert Leigh '62, the class extends its deepest sympathy.

The Class of 1948