Background
Chaplin was born in Ranikhet, India, where his father, a major in the British Army, was stationed. Chaplin grew up in North Wales, United Kingdom, and was educated at Eton College, England.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Charles Chaplin
Edit ProfileCareer
In the late 1940s Chaplin began his ichthyological work in Nassau, Bahamas, as a research associate for Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Their work led to the co-authorship of Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters (1968, with a new edition published in 1992). The book remains the “primary reference for the identification of West Indian fishes”.
Chaplin and Bohlke pioneered the use of Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array gear and the organic ichthyocide rotenone in collecting specimens.
With British artist and conservationist Sir Peter Scott as illustrator, Chaplin then compiled a general interest guide, A Fishwatchers Guide to West Atlantic Coral Reefs, with a pioneering waterproof edition that could be taken underwater by divers. Waterproof fish guides have since become standard.
In 1959, Chaplin and a group of conservationists from Nassau including Ilya Tolstoy, grandson of the writer Leo Tolstoy, founded the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, one of the world’s first underwater marine reserves. To oversee the park’s operation, they established the Bahamas National Trust.
Smith, Commander of Order of Leopold Copeia, Volume
1969, Number. 1, pp. 211–212
”Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters”. American Forests, v.77, October 1971, p.
42
Smith, Commander of Order of Leopold Copeia, Volume
1994, Number. 1, pp. 253–254
Cowen, R. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 69, Number. 1 (March, 1994), pp.
Achievements
Connections
-
Born
-
Died
1991 (aged 85) -
Nationality
United States