Albert Günther (zoologist)

Albert Carl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther

Albert Carl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther (born October 3, 1830 in Esslingen am Neckar , † February 1, 1914 in Hampton Wick , Middlesex ) was a German zoologist specializing in ichthyology .

Live and act

Albert Günther was born in Esslingen am Neckar . He studied theology in Bonn and Berlin and later medicine in Tübingen . During his student days, he joined the Royal Society of Tübingen, Roigel . From 1856 he worked as an ichthyologist at the Natural History Museum in London. In 1875 he became director of the museum's zoological department. He held this post until 1895. In addition to fish , Günther also dealt with mammals , reptiles and amphibians . With 333 reptile species first described, he takes second place in the ranking of the most productive reptile taxonomists (after George Albert Boulenger ).

Günther married Roberta, the sister of William Carmichael McIntosh . His son Robert Gunther (1869–1940) was a science historian .

Honors

Günther was elected in 1867 as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which in 1878 awarded him the Royal Medal . In 1895 he became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1904 he was awarded the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London . In 1882 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . In addition, a kite named Draco guentheri was named after him.

Selected Works

• The Reptiles of British India, Ray Society 1864
• On the fishes of the state of Central America ... 1866.
• Description of new species of fishes in the British Museum . 1874.
• Andrew Garrett's Fish of the South Seas, described and edited (=  Journal des Museum Godeffroy . Volume 2 ). Ludwig Friederichsen , Hamburg 1875.
• A contribution to the knowledge of the fish fauna of the Rio Plata . 1880.
• Report on the Deep-Sea Fishes collected by HMS Challenger during the years 1873-1876 . 1887 ( archive.org ).

literature

• Helmut Dolezal:  Günther, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 267 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Albert Günther in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} entry on Gunther; Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf (1830–1914) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
2. ↑ Uetz, P. (2010) The original descriptions of reptiles . Zootaxa 2334: 59-68
3. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 13, 2019 . 
4. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Albert Carl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed August 22, 2015 (Russian).