Worth Hamilton Weller was an American herpetologist who died in a fall from a cliff at Grandfather Mountain

Grandfather Mountain

Grandfather Mountain is a mountain, a non-profit attraction, and a North Carolina state parknear Linville, North Carolina. At 5,946 feet , it is the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains, one of the major chains of the Appalachian Mountains. The Blue Ridge Parkway...

 near Linville North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

.

Weller was born in Cincinnati, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. His interest in herpetology

Herpetology

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles...

 and in particular salamander

Salamander

Salamander is a common name of approximately 500 species of amphibians. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with their slender bodies, short noses, and long tails. All known fossils and extinct species fall under the order Caudata, while sometimes the extant...

s developed when he was a young boy exploring nearby fields and woods with his friend Karl Maslowski who went on to become a well known wildlife photographer. Soon he was recording observations for the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Shortly after the director of the museum Ralph E Dury (1899-?) established the Cincinnati Junior Society of Natural Sciences in 1928 he joined it and at 16 became its business manager and Curator of Herpetology. He carried out an extensive correspondence with the herpetologist Emmett Reid Dunn

Emmett Reid Dunn

Emmett Reid Dunn was an American herpetologist noted for his work in Panama and for studies of salamanders in the Eastern United States. He attended Haverford College as an undergraduate and received his PhD from Harvard University. After receiving his PhD taught at Smith College...

 which led to his acceptance at Haverford College

Haverford College

Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...

. Between 1930 and 1932 he published 12 papers, most of which were reprinted in 1965 (Adler:182).

In April 1930 he visited Cascade Caverns

Bat Cave and Cascade Caverns State Nature Preserves

Bat Cave and Cascade Caverns State Nature Preserves are two nature preserves totaling located within the boundaries of Carter Caves State Resort Park in Carter County, Kentucky. Bat Cave was dedicated into the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission system on Dec 16 1981 for the protection of...

 in Kentucky with Dury where he collected the type specimen of a salamander he described and named after Dury, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus duryi (Weller, 1930).
During the summer vacation between his sophomore and junior years at Walnut Hills High School

Walnut Hills High School (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Walnut Hills High School is a public college-preparatory high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Operated by the Cincinnati Public Schools, it houses grades seven through twelve and maintains a culturally diverse student body. The school has been given an excellent rating by the Ohio...

 he visited Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina with Dury, where he discovered the first specimens of Weller's Salamander

Weller's Salamander

The Weller's Salamander is a species of salamander in the Plethodontidae family.It is endemic to the United States...

 (Plethodon welleri). The same year he described a new salamander from Kentucky, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus duryi (Weller, 1930), which he named after Dury. Only a week after graduating with high honors from high school Dury took members of the Junior Society to Grandfather mountain to find more specimens for Weller. The afternoon they arrived Weller left the others to go collecting despite the bad weather and never returned. Four days later his body was found wedged between boulders in a creek below the mountain. With him was a collecting bag which contained specimens of his new species (Adler:182).

Publications

• Walker, Charles F. and Weller, W. Hamilton, "The Identity and Status of Pseudotriton duryi" Copeia, Vol. 1932, No. 2, (Jul. 1, 1932), pp. 81–83 Published by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
• Weller, W. H. 1930 "Notes on amphibians collected in Carter Co., Kentucky." Proc. Junior Soc. of Nat. Sci., Cincinnati, 1, Nos. 5 and 6: 6-9 (counted).
• Weller, W. H. 1930 "On a recent occurrence of the blue-tailed skink in Hamilton County (Ohio)", Proc. Jun. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, nos. 5 and 6.
• Weller, W. H. 1930 "Notes on Aneides aeneus (Cope and Packard)." Proc. Jun. Soc. Nat. Sci. (Cincinnati) 1:2.
• Weller, W. H. 1930 "A preliminary list of the salamanders of the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee." ibid