On the shoulders of giants: Reginald Innes Pocock and integrative mammal research in museums and zoos

Abstract

Abstract Seventy years after his death, Reginald Innes Pocock’s prominence in mammalogy is demonstrated by the continuing amount of citations in recent works and the final acceptance of some of his systematic proposals at generic and suprageneric levels. Pocock’s ability to synthesize and integrate classical taxonomy with the then dominant polytypic species concept, utilizing both skull and external characters, of zoo and museum animals as unique opportunities for the advancement of mammal comparative biology – including the study of several extinct taxa – are an enduring legacy for mammalogy that deserves to be better appreciated especially among European zoologists.