John Anderson (zoologist) - India

India

Anderson moved to India in 1864 to took up the position as the first curator of the Indian Museum at Calcutta in 1865. He catalogued the mammal and archaelogical collections. He held the position of curator until 1887, when he was succeeded by James Wood-Mason and made superintendent of the museum. He made several collection expeditions to China and Burma. In 1867 he accompanied Colonel Edward Bosc Sladen as a naturalist on an expedition to Upper Burma and Yunnan. This expedition allowed him to collect the Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris and compared with Orcaella fluminalis and the Gangetic dolphin, Plantanista gangetica. In 1875-6 he travelled to the same area under Colonel Horace Browne. This was cut short due to the murder of the consular officer Augustus Raymond Margary. Anderson made a third expedition for the Indian Museum in 1881–2 to the Mergui archipelago, Burma.

Anderson made comparative studies of anatomy of the species that he collected. He worked on reptiles, birds as well as mammals such as of the genus Hylomys. He also wrote on the ethnology of the Selungs of the Mergui archipelago. Many of the plant specimens that he collected are at Calcutta, Kew and the Natural History Museum, London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1879 and was made honorary LLD of Edinburgh in 1885. During the time that he held the office of superintendent of the Calcutta museum he also served as professor of comparative anatomy at the medical school in Calcutta.