Kees Moeliker

Moeliker's father worked for forty years as a technical illustrator for the (subsequently superseded) Dutch post office.{{cite web|url=http://minouopdenvelde.nl/pdf/interviews/KeesMoeliker.pdf|title=Biographical interview: Bioloog Kees Moeliker (1960) schaamt zich niet voor zijn passies: bij hem mag de placenta ("prachtig orgaan!") van zijn dochter gewoon op het dressoir staan. Aan Zin toont hij zijn meest dierbare bezittingen.|author=Minou op den Velde|date=|accessdate=12 October 2014}} Kees himself was provided with education at the Pieter Caland School in Rotterdam.{{cite web | url=http://moeliker.wordpress.com/over/ | title=About Kees | work=personal website | date=n.d.| accessdate=6 October 2014}} During this time he used to wander across the nature reserves in the Rotterdam area. On one of his walks, in 1973, he made the first ever recorded observation in the area of an Egyptian Nile goose (Alopochen aegyptiacus).

He went on to study biology and geography at a teacher training institution in Delft.{{Cite web|title= Probeer alles te relativeren|url=http://www.ru.nl/studentenkerk/proviand/overzicht_en_inhoud/jaargangen/jaargang_8/8-1/#Probeerallesterelativeren| publisher=Radboud University Nijmegen|author= Steven Teerenstra|date=October 2006|accessdate=12 October 2014}} He graduated with a research project on the winter-season feeding ecology of the Long eared owl (Asio otus). The research later provided the basis for a section in his 1989 compilation, "Owls" ("Uilen").Zomeren, Koos van (1989), Uilen. Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, {{ISBN|90-295-6008-8}} Moeliker also collaborated on the research led by the high-profile Biology/Ornithology Professor Kees Heij, undertaken at the Free University (Amsterdam) into the population ecology of the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) in Rotterdam.Heij, C.J. (1985), Comparative ecology of the house sparrow Passer domesticus in rural, suburban and urban situations. Proefschrift Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Alblasserdam: Kanters

Before he joined the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, Moeliker worked as an assistant-butcher, an English teacher in Istanbul, a nature guide in Costa Rica and a biology teacher at several high schools. He joined the museum, initially as an educational assistant, in 1989. From 1999 to 2015 he was the museum's curator and head of communications. Since 1 December 2015 he has been the museum's director.

In 1991, together with Kees Heij, he discovered a Boano monarch (Monarcha boanensis), a bird that had been thought extinct, on the island of Boano, in the Indonesian province of Maluku.{{Cite web |last=Moeliker |first=C. W. |last2=Heij |first2=C. J. |date=30 November 1995 |title=The rediscovery of Monarcha boanensis |url=http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Publicaties/Deinsea/Deinsea_02/Deinsea_2_p123-143_Moeliker.pdf |access-date=19 October 2014 |publisher=Deinsea, Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam}} A subsequent Moeliker rediscovery, in 2001, involved the Waigeo brush-turkey (Aepypodius bruijnii) he identified in Waigeo Island, West Papua. With Erwin J.O. Kompanje, Moeliker identified and described a subspecies of Long-tongued nectar bat (Macroglossus minimus booensis), of which the known habitat is restricted to the little Island of Boo in the east of Indonesia.{{Cite web |last=Kompanje |first=Erwin J. O. |last2=Moeliker |first2=Cornelis W. |title=Holotype of Macroglossus minimus booensis from remote Moluccan and West-Papuan Islands |url=http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Persberichten/Persfoto_s/Als__t_beestje_maar_een_naam_heeft/2_Holotype_van_Macroglossus_minimus_booensis_Kompanje___Moeliker.jpg |access-date=19 October 2014 |publisher=Deinsea, Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam}}

Amongst his work for the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, Moeliker preserved the Domino Day 2005 sparrow, a house sparrow that was shot and killed by a hunter after it knocked down a large domino display in Leeuwarden. The bird was stuffed and is now mounted on a box of dominos.{{cite web|url=http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/exposities/vast-dode-dieren-met-een-verhaal/|title=Dode dieren met een verhaal|publisher=Natural History Museum Rotterdam|language=Dutch|accessdate=6 October 2014|archive-date=21 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131221012721/http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/exposities/vast-dode-dieren-met-een-verhaal/|url-status=dead}}{{cite episode|title=Meeting Thirty-Seven|series=The Museum of Curiosity|airdate=6 October 2014|season=7|number=1}}

File:Dead Duck Day.png

Moeliker has written three books: {{lang|nl|De eendenman}} (which translates to The Duck Guy) in 2009;{{Cite book |last=Moeliker |first=Kees |title=De eendenman: over homoseksuele necrofilie en ander opmerkelijk diergedrag |date=January 2009 |publisher=Nieuw Amsterdam |isbn=978-90-468-0479-7 |location=Amsterdam |trans-title=The Duck Guy |oclc=309067377}} {{lang|nl|De Bilnaad van de Teek}}, which translates to The Butt Crack of the Tick, in 2012;{{Cite book |last=Moeliker |first=Kees |title=De bilnaad van de teek: beesten door de bril van een bevlogen bioloog |date=October 2012 |publisher=Nieuw Amsterdam |isbn=978-90-468-1384-3 |location=Amsterdam |trans-title=The Butt Crack of the Tick |oclc=812548847}} and {{lang|nl|De kikker kamasutra}} (which translates to The Frog Kamasutra) in 2024.{{Cite book |last=Moeliker |first=Kees |title=De kikker kamasutra |date=August 2024 |publisher=Prometheus |isbn=9789044656855 |location=Amsterdam |trans-title=The Frog Kamasutra}} De Bilnaad van de Teek was voted "best science book of the year" by the newspaper de Volkskrant that year.{{cite news|last=van Calmthout|first=Martijn|url=http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-archief/top-20-de-beste-boeken-van-een-wankel-jaar~a3369716/|title=Top-20: de beste boeken van een wankel jaar|publisher=de Volkskrant|language=Dutch|date=29 December 2012|accessdate=6 October 2014}}

He won the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for biology for his study of homosexual necrophilia in male mallards.{{cite web|url=http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2003|title=The 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Winners|publisher=Improbable Research|accessdate=6 October 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110225074430/http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2003|archivedate=25 February 2011}}{{cite journal|last=Moeliker|first=C. W.|title=The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)|journal=Deinsea|volume=8|issue=2001|pages=243–247|date=9 November 2001|url=http://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-nmr/Publicaties/Deinsea/Deinsea_08/Deinsea_8_15_Moeliker_.pdf |accessdate=6 October 2014}}

He was nominated in 2013 for the Edgar Doncker Prize in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Rotterdam Natural History Museum and to conservation more generally.{{cite web|url=http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/31-01-2013/moeliker-genomineerd-voor-edgar-doncker-prijs|date=31 January 2013|title= Moeliker genomineerd voor Edgar Doncker prijs|accessdate=10 October 2014}}

File:Males_Anas_platyrhynchos_2.jpgs, Anas platyrhynchos]]

After Moeliker won his Ig Nobel Prize, he earned the nickname of "The Duck Guy". He appears annually at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in Boston, Massachusetts, and is a regular performer on the Ig Nobel Prize's tours of the United Kingdom. On one tour, on 11 March 2014, a mini-opera based on his study entitled The Homosexual Necrophiliac Duck Opera was premiered at Imperial College London. It was composed by Daniel Gillingwater, with Moeliker performing a duck call.{{cite web|last=Moeliker|first=Kees|url=http://www.improbable.com/2014/03/11/the-homosexual-necrophiliac-duck-opera/|title=The Homosexual Necrophiliac Duck Opera|publisher=Improbable Research|date=11 March 2014|accessdate=16 October 2014}} A Dead Duck Day is held on 5 June every year, "to commemorate the first anniversary of the sudden and dramatic death (on 5 June 1995) of the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) that entered the scientific literature as the first victim of homosexual necrophilia in this species."{{cite web |last=Moeliker|first=Kees|url=http://moeliker.wordpress.com/dead-duck-day-een-korte-geschiedenis/|title=What is Dead Duck Day?|date=4 June 2010|publisher=Kees Moeliker's Wordpress Blog|accessdate=16 October 2014}}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlgcOMUOg60 |publisher=YouTube|title= The Dead Duck Day ceremony of 2012, conducted by Kees Moeliker at the Rotterdam Natural History Museum (bilingual, ca.15 minute presentation) featuring several ducks and a short digression on the Red-billed buffalo weaver |accessdate=20 October 2014|author=Kees Moeliker|date=8 June 2012}}

On 6 October 2014, he made a guest appearance on BBC Radio 4 comedy The Museum of Curiosity and donated a single pubic louse to the museum. During the programme the presenter John Lloyd observed that Kees Moeliker did not have an English-language Wikipedia page but only a Dutch-language one. Lloyd went on to state: "We're going to make one about you for the English Wikipedia". Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, who was also a guest on the programme, replied that that was unnecessary because Wikipedians listen to the show and he predicted that an English-language page for Kees Moeliker would be created before the airing of the programme had finished. Approximately 8 minutes later, and 7 minutes before the programme finished being aired, the first version of this page had been submitted.

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Category:1960 births

Category:Living people

Category:Dutch biologists

Category:Dutch ornithologists

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Category:Directors of museums in Rotterdam

Category:Ig Nobel laureates