William Gambel

William Gambel (June 1823 – December 13, 1849) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, botanist, and natural history specimen collector from Pennsylvania.

Gambel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1838 he travelled with the renowned Harvard botanist and naturalist Thomas Nuttall, on a collecting trip to North Carolina.

In March 1841 he set off alone to collect more plants for Nuttall, and travelled west, taking a more southerly route to that taken previously by Nuttall and John Kirk Townsend. From Independence he followed the Santa Fe Trail, and then along the Old Spanish Trail, arriving in Mexican Alta California in early November. He spent 1842 collecting along the California coast, and then joined the US Navy as a secretary, which allowed him to visit all the Spanish missions of California.

The new birds he collected included Gambel's quail (Callipepla gambelii), mountain chickadee (Parus gambeli) and Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii).

Gambel arrived back in Philadelphia in August 1845. In 1848 he qualified as a physician.

He died of typhoid while crossing the Sierra Nevada range in California, in midwinter 1849.

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