History
John Van Denburgh was an American herpetologist from California. In 1895 he organised the herpetology department of the California Academy of Sciences. He practiced medicine in San Francisco while serving as curator of the herpetological collections of the California Academy of Sciences. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he was instrumental in rebuilding the lost herpetology collections through new expeditions and acquisitions of other collections. In 1922 he published the two-volume The Reptiles of Western North America. He discovered and described at least 38 species of reptiles
