Unusual Facts of my life

Where it all started: in Burundi, Africa

• I was born in the small town of Kitega, in the middle of a country that used to be called the Kingdom of Ruanda Urundi, a rather small country in the central part of Africa, near lake Tanganyika and Mt. Kilimanjaro. The country was later divided into two parts and Urundi is now known as the Republic of Burundi.
• After living a few years in Burundi, we moved to the province of Katanga in the southern tip of the Belgium Congo, now known as Zaire. Nope, sorry I saw my first giraffes and elephants in a zoo, not alongside the roads. Elizabethville (now Lumumbashi) was a fairly big city. We spoke french most of the time, and I didn't really get to learn much swahili.

An illustrious ancestor the Baron Omalius d'Halloy

• Charles Darwin wrote in the Preface to his famous book:

  "On The Origin Of Species By Means of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life."

  By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnaean, etc, Societies; author of Journal of Researches During H.M.S. Beagle's Voyage Round the World. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859. The right of Translation is reserved.

  Preface

  AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF OPINION ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES PREVIOUSLY TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS WORK

  I WILL HERE GIVE a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms.

  .......etc

  In 1846 the veteran geologist N. J. d'Omalius d'Halloy published in an excellent though short paper (``Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy Bruxelles,' tom. xiii. p. 581) his opinion that it is more probable that new species have been produced by descent with modification than that they have been separately created: the author first promulgated this opinion in 1831.

  .......etc

  See "The Origin of Species" for the complete version of the book.

The discovery of a new marsupial frog species:
gastrotheca christiani

• When I was a teenager I used to go out into the tropical jungles of northern Argentina to help my father, an expert herpetologist, find specimens of rare species of frogs, lizards and snakes. In so doing I discovered the first individual of a new species of the Genus Gastrotheca. This is a marsupial frog that keeps its eggs in a dorsal pouch. The Genus had been known from Mexico down to Bolivia but it had never been seen before in Argentina.

  The new species found in November 1967 near Calilegua, province of Jujuy, Argentina, was dedicated to me and called Gastrotheca christiani.

  See the publication "Descubrimiento del Genero Gastrotheca Fitzinger en Argentina" by Raymond F. Laurent, Acta Zoologica Lilloana, vol 22, pages 353-4, 1967

  Also: "Estudio Complementario de Gasthrotheca Christiani Laurent", by R. L. Laurent, Acta Zoologica Lilloana, Vol 25, p 123-36, 1969.

• Later, in the early 70's, my brother and I discovered another new species, but this time of the Genera Telmatobius, in the province of Catamarca, Argentina. This genus is found only at very high altitudes (10,000 ft and higher), within the freezing waters of high mountain brooks and streams. The new species was dedicated to my brother Stephan and is called Telmatobius stephani.

Climbing up to 20,000 ft and higher in South America

• When I was 14 years old I climbed my first higher-than-4000-meters-mountain. It was the Cerro Bayo, 4500 meters high (14,760ft), in northern Argentina.

• At 16 I reached the top of my first higher-than-5000-meters-mountain, the Cerro Chimberi, 5300 meters high (17,400 ft).

• I was 18 when I climbed my first higher-than-6000-meters-mountain, the extinct volcano Socompa of 6030 meters high (19,780 ft) on the frontier between Argentina and Chile.

• At 20, I .... hmmm, no there are no higher-than-7000-meters-mountain in South America. The highest is the Cerro Aconcagua with 6960 meters (22,834ft). In North America, Mt. Mckinley (Denali) is 20,320ft high (6194 mts). And the Himalayas and Karakoram are just too far away. Oh well...

• Anyway, I later made it to the top of Mt. Chani, 6200 meters high (20,340 ft).

• My highest altitude so far happened when trying to reach the top of Mt. Ojos del Salado (6880 mts), and attaining a height of 6500 meters (21,330 ft).

  More to follow .....maybe ! ;-)

  ---

  Christian Halloy / halloy@cs.utk.edu
  Last Modified: Tue Jul 16 16:27:01 EDT 1996