Melvin Alvah Traylor Jr.

Melvin Alvah Traylor Jr. was an American ornithologist who lived from 1915 to 2008. After serving with the Marines in World War II, including combat on Guadalcanal and Tarawa, he joined the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1937, becoming assistant curator of birds in 1956 and leading bird expeditions across Africa, South America, and Asia, including the 1960 World Book Encyclopedia Scientific Expedition to the Himalaya led by Edmund Hillary. He co-authored the standard reference Check-list of Birds of the World, described multiple bird species, and received the American Ornithologists' Union's Elliott Coues Award in 2001.