Schmidt, Karl P.

Karl P. Schmidt, (born June 19, 1890, Lake Forest, Illinois, U.S.—died September 26, 1957, Chicago), U.S. zoologist whose international reputation derived from the principles of animal ecology he established through his theoretical studies and fieldwork. He was also a leading authority on herpetology, contributing significantly to the scientific literature on amphibians and snakes.

Schmidt cogently demonstrated that animal distributions are in large part determined by climate and by local physical conditions. Different animal species, for example, spread and receded with their habitats during successive glacial and interglacial periods, some eventually becoming stranded in detached environmental pockets. Applying ecological principles to data on fauna, Schmidt divided the world into three major faunal regions, Arctogaean, Neogaean, and Notogaean, each basically having its own distinct animal life. Schmidt’s scheme, proposed in 1954, was in essence a modified version of the earlier zoogeographical divisions set forth by the 19th-century English naturalists Philip L. Sclater and Alfred R. Wallace.

Schmidt’s death was the result of an unfortunate decision he made while he was cataloging a juvenile snake that was brought into Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. During the process of species identification, the young snake, a boomslang (Dispholidus typus), bit him on the thumb. Instead of seeking medical attention, Schmidt decided to document the effects that the dose of venom, which he did not believe to be fatal, would have on him. Over the next 24 hours, he documented episodes of nausea, fever and chills, and bleeding from the mucous membranes in his mouth and nose before he died from respiration paralysis and a brain hemorrhage brought on by the snakebite.