Clifford H. Pope

Who was Clifford H. Pope?

Cliford Hillhouse Pope was a noted American herpetologist. He was the son of Mark Cooper Pope and Harriett Alexander Pope, and grew up in Washington, Georgia. Shortly after his graduation from the University of Virginia, Pope went to the Tropical Research Station at British Guiana, maintained by William Beebe. Later, he spent many years in China with expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History, accompanying Roy Chapman Andrews on the expedition to the Gobi desert that first discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs. Pope mastered the Chinese language and made a total of eight expeditions in Chinese terriroty prior to 1930. In China he gave scientific names for the Kuatun Horned Toad, Hyla sanchiangensis, Amolops chunganensis, Rana fukienensis, and others. He also did a great deal of work with Karl Patterson Schmidt. Pope worked at the American Museum of Natural History from 1921-1934. He was president and journal editor of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 1935.

In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Pope an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year.