Hyman, Libbie Henrietta (1888–1969)

US zoologist whose six-volume The Invertebrates (940–68) provided an encyclopedic account of most phyla of invertebrates.

Hyman was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and studied at the University of Chicago, where she remained as a research assistant until 1930. She then travelled to several European laboratories, working for a period at the Stazione Zoologica, Naples, Italy, before returning to New York City to begin to write a comprehensive reference book on the invertebrates, for which she was given office and laboratory space, but no salary, by the American Museum of Natural History.

Initially she worked on flatworms, but soon extended her investigations to a wide spread of invertebrates, especially their taxonomy (classification) and anatomy.