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Ann Haven Morgan

American zoologist and ecologist (1882-1966)

Ann Haven Morgan (May 6, 1882 – June 5, 1966) was an American limnologist, zoologist, conservationist, and educational reformer, advocating equal educational opportunities for women. She received in 1912 her Ph.D. from Cornell University and became in 1918 a full professor at Mount Holyoke College. She was mentored by Corneia M. Clapp. In 1920 Morgan was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ann Haven Morgan

Quotes

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  • ... The two problems which face every organism are those of maintaining its own life and continuing its race. Its youth is devoted entirely to satisfying its individual needs for food and safety; its adult life is devoted to the race, but the necessities of the individual are still satisfied though they may be secured in an entirely different way. The immature life of May-flies is aquatic, and to it all adjustments concerned with food or safety are exclusively confined. The mature or adult life is aerial. It is solely devoted to reproduction. There is no provision for food or for other means of lengthening its life. It gives an opportunity for studying ways of getting a living which have been completely isolated from ways of reproducing.
    • (1 September 1913)"A Contribution to the Biology of May-Flies". Annals of the Entomological Society of America 6 (3): 371–413. DOI:10.1093/aesa/6.3.371.
  • At Kartabo the waters of the Cayuni meet those of the Mazaruni and soon join the great lake-like Essequibo flowing north through the low lying country of British Guiana until it runs into the sea at Georgetown. These rivers are hedged in by the jungle whose undergrowth has invaded the border waters in a persistent attempt to gain more territory. Mangrove roots swing so far out from the banks that fish swim in and out among them. Moccamoccas, the giant arums, have grown out still further. Their clublike stems standing in close rank provide on gigantic scale the kind of animal shelter furnished in more modest form by our own arrow head and pickerel weeds. Many slow flowing creeks feed into these larger streams but their mouths are hidden by creepers, tangles of mangrove, and prickly shrubs, and if the currents are gentle enough they are choked by lush growths of Cabomba.
    … Even at Kartabo Point the daily tides are insistent reminders of the ocean forty miles away.The low tide lay bare stretches of muck and ooze, silt and silty sand ... the likely dwelling place of the burrowing and crawling Mayflies ...

Field Book of Ponds and Streams: An Introduction to the Life of Fresh Water (1930)

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  • No one who has lived by clear waters can have failed to see something of their wonderful life: minnows on the shoals; caddis worms dragging their cumbersome portable houses over the brook bed; the young of mayflies clinging to the stones in the riffle; or the adult mayflies in their dancing nuptial flight in the air above the stream; and what could be more interesting?
  • Different waters hold their own special communities; the dainty glen stream shelters companies of mayflies in its swift riffles; pond shallows and meadow brooks are the homes of lurking dragonfly nymphs; and wayside puddles are populous with mosquito wrigglers and water-fleas. In all these places living things must contend with winter cold and summer drought, with storms and flood waters. In winter the pond populations drop to the bottom, frogs and turtles dig under mud and broken plants, whirligig beetles hide under banks to come out with every warm spell, and fresh water sponges are packed in tough covered capsules. In summer when its own pool dries up the water boatman flies to some other pond but many caddis worms burrow into the mud bottom and endure the drought as best they can.
  • Among the lily pads and the water weeds of the shallows, lurk sunfishes, bullheads, mud minnows, and young perch. All of these forage upon snails, crustaceans, and insect larvæ, especially the tempting mayfly nymphs which they find there. Bullfrogs float with their heads just out of water; of all frogs these belong most thoroughly in the pond. Equally at home in it are the painted turtles, and the spotted turtles often found with them … In May and June stumps and floating logs usually carry a load of one kind or the other. They forage in the shallows taking a heavy toll of tadpoles, snails, dragonflies—a miscellaneous bill-of-fare which they always eat under water. Snapping turtles frequent these waters also, catching anything within reach of the lightning-quick thrusts of their heads—fishes, tadpoles, frogs, or crayfishes, as well as the smaller game of insects and worms.
  • Rotifers are transparent microscopic animals which live in fresh or salt water. They abound in the surface waters of great lakes, and swarm through the shallows of ponds and bogs; there is scarcely any stand of soft water, whether transient puddle or rain-barrel or fountain-basin, where rotifers can not be found. They live in ponds and lakes, providing a large part of the food for small crustaceans and worms and are thus indirectly a large source of food for fishes.
  • Leeches posses much more beauty and interest than their reputation credits them with. Most of them are marked with concealing colors and patterns, browns, greens, and blacks, picturing upon them the broken shadows and water-soaked leaves of their natural background and hiding them in it. They are sensitive to the slightest vibration of the water, to shadows passing over them, and to small changes in the water around them. Their whole set up is one of exquisite efficiency for their mode of living.
    … The external features most essential to a leech are the strong muscular suckers at each end of its body and the sucking mouth which which may or may not be armed with jaws … Leeches are segmented worms like bristleworms and common earthworms and belong to the Phylum Annelida.
  • As the spawning season approaches, fishes move toward the shores of ponds and lakes or upstream in the creeks. Some of them, such as perch and sunfish, only swim in among nearby weeds or protecting stones. The journeys vary from such short ones to the famous migrations of river salmon, extending over hundreds of miles; but they all end at spawning grounds or nesting sites. During this time color differences between male and female appear or become more marked.

Kinships of Animals and Man: A Textbook of Animal Biology (1955)

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  • … Wherever animals live, in fresh water, salt water, or on land, their body fluids are similar; all are salty. In marine invertebrates, whether jellyfishes or horseshoe crabs, the body fluids are practically filtered sea water.
  • The kidneys (nephridia) of earthworms repeat the essentials of kidney form and function, tubules closely associated with blood and body fluid, each one a guardian of the content of the blood. There are two kidneys in nearly every segment of the earthworm ...
  • ... Darwin ... became the official naturalist on the five-year voyage of the "Beagle" (1831–1836) ...
    ... He also read the essay in which Malthus told of the human populations that became too large for the space available to them (1838). This suggested a plan. Some organism must be winnowed out by their natural surroundings; thus, others would be benefited. There would be natural selection.

Quotes about Ann Haven Morgan

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  • ... Although she carried on most of her research in the northeastern United States, she spent the summer of 1926 working in British Guiana at the Tropical Laboratory in Kartabo.
    Although limnology was her special subject—on which wrote a useful book, Field Book of Ponds and Streams (1930)—Morgan was also interested in many other facets of zoology, particularly hibernating animals. Her Field Book of Animals in Winter (1939) reflected this interest. In 1949 the Encyclopædia Britannica made it into an educational film. She was also interested in conservation and ecology..
  • Morgan's views concerning animal and human interdependence place her among a select group of strong conservationists, of whom the most renowned is probably Rachel Carson ...
    • Susan J. Wurtzburg, "Ann Haven Morgan (1882–1966)". Women in the Biological Sciences: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Bloomsbury Publishing. 1997. pp. 332–338.  (quote from p. 335; edited by Carol A. Biermann, Louise S. Grinstein, and Rose K. Rose)
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