Phil Heemstra


Dr Phillip Clarence Heemstra was an American-South African ichthyologist. He was born in Melrose Park, Illinois, United States as the son of Clarence William Heemstra and his wife, Lydia. He attended school in Ottawa, Illinois, and completed a B.Sc. Zoology in 1963 at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois, as well as his MSc degree and doctorate in marine biology at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. He moved to live in South Africa in 1978.
At the time of his death, Heemstra was a curator emeritus of the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity. He specialized in ichthyology and marine fish taxonomy.

Career

Heemstra was, among other things, a biologist at the marine laboratory of the U.S. Department of Natural Resources in Florida, and from 1978 to 2001 a curator of fish at J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology in Grahamstown.
His work included research on systematics, biology, zoo-geography and marine fish conservation, a survey of the fish diversity of Southern Africa and the western Indian Ocean, and the identification of marine fish for institutions in South Africa and overseas. He has also been a consultant to numerous publications and the author or co-author of several books, including Coastal Fishes of Southern Africa with Elaine Heemstra. He received many honours from various institutions.
He was a member of, among others, the Zoological Society of Southern Africa, the Ichatology Society of Japan, the American Society of Ichologists and Herpetologists and the Society of Systematic Biologists.

Personal life

Heemstra married Elaine Margaret Grant on March 15, 1991; Elaine has a son, Andrew Grant. Phil and his first wife, Valerie, have two daughters, Lydia and Julia.