Myron Gordon

Immigrated into the U.S. with his family when he was five years old.  He was brought up in Harlem, N.Y., studied at Cornell University and worked at the New York Zoological Park (Bronx Zoo).  He received his B.S. in 1925, Masters in 1926, and his Ph.D. in Zoology in 1929 from Cornell where he had founded the Fish Genetics Laboratory (FGL).  He became an internationally known fish geneticist and was associated with the New York Aquarium since 1938 as a post-graduate student.  Later he was appointed Research Associate in Genetics in 1941, Associate Curator of Fishes in 1944, and Geneticist in 1947.  Until his death, Gordon conducted pioneering research on the inheritance of normal and abnormal pigment cell growth, especially melanoma tissues, in fishes. 

Involvement in Hypogean Fish Research

From 1938 through 1940 he was a Guggenheim Fellow during which time he made a collecting trip to Mexico.  He collected a number of individuals of the Mexican blind tetra, Astyanax fasciatus, which he took to New York.  This fish elicited the interest of his New York colleagues, among them Edward Bellamy Gresser (Atz and Rosen 1959).