Zoologische Mededelingen, 85 (November 2011)A.C. van Bruggen: Willem Vervoort (1917-2010), copepodologist, Hydrozoa specialist and museum director, an obituary

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The distinguished zoologist Prof. Dr Willem Vervoort died on 18^th August 2010, in Leiden. During his lifetime two volumes with scientific essays in his honour were published, i.e., a modest one when he retired (Van Bruggen & Wiebes, eds., 1982, 143 pp.) and a substantial one for his 80^th birthday in 1997 (Den Hartog, Van Bruggen, Cornelius & Van Ofwegen, eds., 1998, 460 pp.). In the latter his life and works were described in extenso by Van Bruggen (1998), Cornelius (1998) and Von Vaupel Klein (1998), so that only a recapitulation is in order here.

Born on 12^th June 1917 in Schiedam, and inspired by a highly motivated high school teacher, Willem [Wim] Vervoort obtained his Ph.D. at Leiden University in 1946 on a published thesis on the Copepoda of the Snellius Expedition (eastern Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia). Delays were due to the Second World War which did intensely involve The Netherlands (1940-1945). He had a distinguished career (1941-1982) at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (Leiden), later called the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, now forming part of the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis. He rose from scientific assistant in 1941 to director (1972-1982) and also occupied the Chair of Systematic Zoology at Leiden University (1973-1982). His career at the museum was interrupted by a stint in the Zoology Department of this university (1950-1959), where he was in charge of the cytology and histology section. He travelled throughout the world for field work and museum visits. Mention should be made of his participation in Dutch Antarctic whaling exploits where he served as a cetacean biologist (1946-1948), and in the last great colonial exploration in Netherlands New Guinea (now Irian Jaya, Indonesia), the Star Mountains expedition in 1959, where he acted as senior zoologist. Notwithstanding his multifarious duties in the museum, he vigorously pursued his research on the taxonomy of two marine invertebrate groups, the Copepoda and Hydrozoa. When he retired in 1982 at 65 years of age, he doggedly resumed full-time research on his beloved Hydrozoa, only to return to the Copepoda shortly before his demise – he spent the last few weeks of his life studying copepod parasites of fishes in the museum collections. Much to his regret he was unable to complete some more papers on the Hydrozoa; all manuscripts, notes, drawings, etc. are now available in the archives of the Leiden Museum. Most of his digital copepod files are with Mr Chad Walter at the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History), Washington, D.C.

The difficult war years (1940-1945), particularly as regards the museum, are aptly described by Vervoort himself (2010d). One of the highlights of Vervoort’s career was the visit of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito (1971) who as a marine biologist wanted to meet his esteemed colleagues Vervoort and Prof. Dr L.B. Holthuis (the world-renowned carcinologist). Incidentally, the tour of Emperor Hirohito in The Netherlands was highly controversial because of his position in World War II. This meeting is also recorded in Vervoort’s reminiscences of Holthuis (Vervoort, 2010d).

His period at Leiden university (1950-1958) is characterized by himself as a “largely unsuccessful attempt to become an histologist” (Vervoort, 2010d: 81). However, the present author, then a student, has fond memories of Vervoort’s teaching histology and cytology (both the lectures and a fascinating practical course) in the early fifties of last century. Vervoort was always interested in new developments and he taught us to use the latest materials available; in fact some of these did not live up to expectations and this is probably the reason why he was less than satisfied with this part of his career. Much later in his life he became an enthusiastic proponent of the use of computers and always acquired the latest gadgets and techniques. For many younger people he, in his early nineties, was a godsend for solving computer problems. Vervoort also was a promoter of digital photography, which enabled him to pursue his abiding interest in photography in general.

His directorate of the museum was successful and reflects a period of consolidation and limited expansion after the directorate of his two distinguished predecessors, although he continuously had to be vigilant and persistent in the face of cuts in government budgets. In those days the museum functioned mainly as the national institute of taxonomic zoology, with little impact on the general public because of the lack of exhibition facilities. In his period the museum had a full staff complement consisting of a vertebrate section (with four curators), an invertebrate non-insect section (with five curators), and an entomology section (with six curators). In addition there was a palaeontologist for the Dubois collection of vertebrate fossils, and a European Invertebrate Survey curator for faunistics. These 17 university-trained scientists worked together with a bevy of technical assistants who were in charge of preparing specimens and who generally looked after the relevant part of the collection.

Vervoort was a well-travelled man. Over a succession of years he made an annual pilgrimage to the library of The Natural History Museum in London, mainly to work on his Copepoda bibliography (Vervoort, 1986c, 1986d, 1988, encompassing a total of 1316 pp.; see bibliography in Van Bruggen, 1998: 8-13). Other trips brought him (usually together with his spouse Len) to New Zealand (four times, for working on his local Hydrozoa project) and to other places e.g., to attend symposia and workshops. They travelled frequently to California to visit their daughter (Dr Helene Vervoort-Regan) and her family, but also to work in the Santa Barbara Museum.

The number and quality of Vervoort’s publications is stupendous. The tally of publications by Vervoort (and co-authors) may seem rather modest (170), yet the total number of pages is 9609 (fig. 2). His papers published after the 1998 list (Van Bruggen, 1998: 8-13) are enumerated as Appendix No. 1; new taxa introduced in the same period (cf. Van Bruggen, 1998: 14-15) are shown as Appendix No. 2. A third appendix attempts to collate eponyms. As a widely recognized specialist in Copepoda and Hydrozoa, but also as a museum director, Willem Vervoort has frequently been commemorated by names of new taxa world-wide. It appears that he introduced (frequently with co-authors, particularly in the Hydrozoa) 70 taxa of Copepoda (i.e. 1 family, 1 subfamily, 11 genera, 57 species) and 199 of Hydrozoa (i.e. 1 family, 11 genera, 181 species, 3 subspecies, 1 variety and 2 nomina nova). As regards the latter, Dr P. Schuchert of the Geneva Museum wrote to the present author in 2010: “The current tally (end 2009) of valid hydrozoan species with Vervoort as sole or as co-author is about 191 species. So yes, you are right, Wim is among the top 5 authors, actually number 2 (Fraser 195; Allman 135). He might well become number one as many of Fraser’s species will likely become declared unrecognizable or synonyms.”

His Hydrozoa work started in 1941 and already in 1946 Vervoort published a major, well illustrated, treatise in Dutch on the Hydrozoa of The Netherlands (336 pp.). It was fitting that he ended his career with an entirely new version of this work in 2009, this time in another format with a co-author (Marco Faasse) and encompassing only 148 pp. As regards the former, Cornelius (1998: 17) has stated: “Such treatises are typically written following a lifetime’s experience in a group, but Wim did this at the very start.” Incidentally, after his Copepoda bibliography his single most bulky publication is that on the Hydrozoa of New Zealand, co-authored by Jeanette Watson (2003a) – a large, bound tome (A4 size) with a total of 538 pp. and weighing c. 2.5 kg! Vervoort mainly worked on the basis of faunistics, dependent as he was on material supplied by expeditions and surveys. Close cooperation with his technical assistant in the Leiden Museum, Chiel Slierings, resulted in the best collection of Hydrozoa world-wide.

Apart from the Copepoda and Hydrozoa Vervoort had a wide ranging interest in all marine organisms. Yet, he was also highly interested in plants; as a sequel to his floristic activities he even published on land snails in the 1940s.

Every morning until shortly before his demise Willem Vervoort arrived at the museum, a tall upright figure, immaculately dressed in a clean white laboratory coat, and set to work. Until the end he was in full possession of all his faculties. He made all his hydrozoan slides himself and his room always sported an old-fashioned incubator for drying his preparations. Also, he did his own illustrations in pencil, which in a later stage were usually inked by professional museum artists. He retained his own clear and simple but functional style, so that all his drawings over a span of about 65 years are to a greater or lesser extent comparable. Most of his students and younger colleagues successfully copied his style, as is shown in their numerous publications. Physically he was in splendid shape almost to the end, abandoning his bicycle as a means of local transport only when he reached his nineties. Over more than a decade the present author had morning coffee with him in his office when we discussed major issues, particularly politics, but, as is normal among biologists, preferably professional problems. He was always prepared to scan manuscripts, even those outside his expertise (e.g. on terrestrial molluscs of Africa). He was good at this and many a time he prevented prospective authors from making mistakes. Vervoort had a fabulous memory, particularly as regards the history of the museum and, of course, his own specialisms. Also, he was always prepared to assist and he was remarkably efficiënt in dealing with difficult questions. In the context of field work we fondly remember his propensity for shifting heavy loads.

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