I nominate Karl P. Schmidt , a famous American zoologist who demonstrated incredible courage, mixed perhaps with a certain amount of light-heartedness.
In September 1957, someone from the Lincoln Park Zoo brought a 30-inch (76-centimeter) juvenile snake to the Chicago Museum of Natural History; the snake had not been identified, and they asked Schmidt for help in identifying it.
The renowned zoologist Karl P. Schmidt was working at the Natural History Museum at the time and agreed to take a look at the snake. Schmidt was a renowned reptile expert who had achieved some renown in his field, adept at identifying snakes, and many species bore his name.
On September 25, Schmidt noted that the snake was African, covered in brightly colored patterns, and had a head shape similar to that of a boomslang (a type of venomous snake found in sub-Saharan Africa). The zoologist, however, doubted whether it was actually a boomslang because, as he noted in his diary, the snake's "anal plate was undivided."