Stanley and colleagues discovered multiple species new to science, including
shrews,
bats,
rodents,
frogs and
primates while surveying the fauna of the
Eastern Arc Mountains.[2][3][4][5][6] Stanley led the first-ever mammal surveys of various mountains in Tanzania, including
Kilimanjaro,
Meru,
Ngorongoro,
Udzungwa,[7][8] and
Rungwe. Two notable discoveries are the
kipunji,[6] the first new genus of African monkey in nearly 100 years, and
Thor's Hero Shrew,[9] the second species of mammal with a bizarre spinal morphology. Stanley created the innovative bi-lingual "Mammals of Tanzania" website that provides identification tools in English and
Kiswahili for skulls and skins of mammals of the country.[10]
Stanley earned an MA at
Humboldt State University (1986–1989) under the tutelage of Timothy E. Lawlor. His thesis focused on the evolution of
chipmunks on mountains of the
Great Basin. He received a BA (1981–1986) in Biology and Zoology from Humboldt State University. Stanley went to the
International School of Kenya and was home schooled for a year by his mother while on safaris in various natural habitats of eastern Africa.
Personal life
Stanley was born in
Beirut,
Lebanon and was evacuated from the country at 2 years of age. He moved to
Kenya with his family when he was 11 and stayed there for 8 years where he worked at the
National Museums of Kenya, and the
Nairobi National Park Animal Orphanage. Stanley and his family spent much of this time in the natural habitats of the country. After graduating from High School Stanley lived in
Brunei, worked on
Kibbutz Be'eri in Israel, and refurbished a century old farmhouse in central
Virginia. He moved to
Humboldt County, California in 1979 where he worked for the
California Fish and Game Department surveying spawning
salmonid fishes. In 1986, Stanley began working at the Humboldt State University Vertebrate Museum where he dissected and cleaned dead whale specimens that washed up on the beaches of Northern California. He moved to Chicago in 1989 to become Collection Manager, Mammals at the
Field Museum of Natural History. He died, apparently of a heart attack, while on a collecting expedition in Ethiopia on October 6, 2015.[14]
^Stanley, W.T.; M.A. Rogers; R. Hutterer (2005). "A new species of Congosorex from the Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania, with significant biogeographical implications". Journal of Zoology. 265 (3): 269–280.
doi:
10.1017/S0952836904006314.
^Stanley, W.T. (2008). "A new species of Mops (Molossidae) from Pemba Island, Tanzania". Acta Chiropterologica. 10 (2): 183–192.
doi:
10.3161/150811008X414773.
S2CID86317345.
^Carleton, M.D.; W.T. Stanley (2005). Graves, Gary R (ed.). "Review of the Hylomyscus denniae complex (Rodentia: Muridae) in Tanzania, with description of a new species". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 118 (3): 619–646.
doi:
10.2988/0006-324X(2005)118[619:ROTHDC]2.0.CO;2.
S2CID55864439.
^Channing, A; W.T. Stanley (2002). "A new tree toad from the Ukaguru Mountains, Tanzania". African Journal of Herpetology. 51 (2): 121–128.
doi:
10.1080/21564574.2002.9635467.
S2CID84332771.
^Stanley, W.T.; M.A. Rogers; R. Hutterer (2005). "A morphological assessment of Myosorex zinki, an endemic shrew on Mt Kilimanjaro". Belgian Journal of Zoology. 135 (Supplement): 141–144.
^Stanley, W.T.; R. Hutterer (2007). "Differences in abundance and species richness between shrews and rodents along an elevational gradient in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania". Acta Theriologica. 52 (3): 261–275.
doi:
10.1007/BF03194222.
S2CID12715226.
^Verheyen, W.N.; Hulselmans, J.L.J.; Dierckx, T.; Mulungu, L.; Leirs, H.; Corti, M.; Verheyen, E. (2007). "The characterization of the Kilimanjaro Lophuromys aquilus TRUE 1892 population and the description of five new Lophuromys species (Rodentia, Muridae)". Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Biologie. 77: 23–75.