Ambrosius Hubrecht

Ambrosius Arnold Willem Hubrecht

Ambrosius Arnold Willem Hubrecht (born March 2, 1853 in Rotterdam , † March 21, 1915 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch zoologist .

Life

The son of the Secretary General of the Interior Department Paul François Hubrecht (born November 29, 1829 in Leiden; † July 7, 1902 in Doorn) and his wife Maria Pruys van der Hoeven (born January 15, 1824 in Rotterdam; † January 17, 1901 in 's-Gravenhage) came from a Dutch patrician family on the paternal side and from a scholarly family on the maternal side. From 1865 he had attended the high school in his hometown and in 1869 moved into the Polytechnic in Delft . Hubrecht began studying biology at Utrecht University in 1870 . In Utrecht, Franciscus Cornelis Donders and Pieter Harting (1812–1885) were his formative teachers. In 1873 he continued his studies at the University of Leiden with Emil Selenka and had expanded his knowledge in 1874 under Carl Gegenbaur at the University of Heidelberg .

In 1874 he returned to Utrecht and was published on October 21, 1874 with the very good treatise Aanteekeningen over de anatomie, histologie en ontwikkelingsgeschiedenis van eenige Nemertinen (Utrecht 1874, freely translated into German: Notes on the anatomy, histology and developmental history of some cordworms .) the doctor doctorate of natural History. He then worked as an assistant at the zoological institute in Erlangen , went to the State Museum of Natural History in Leiden as a curator in 1875 and was appointed professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Utrecht in 1882, which he did with a speech De hypothese der vernelde ontwikkeling door eerstgeboorten en hare plaats in de evolutieleer (Utrecht 1882, freely translated into German: The hypothesis of the accelerated development of the firstborn and its place in evolution. ).

During his time in Utrecht his interest in comparative vertebrate embryology began to develop. As a loyal follower of Darwin's theory, he tried to interpret the results of his research in relation to relationships. In comparative studies, he examined egg cells in the uterus and their first stages in the placenta . In order to have sufficient material available for his research, Hubrecht undertook research trips that took him to the Dutch East Indies in 1890/91 , to Algeria in 1912 and to Africa in 1914 . In doing so, he had built up an extensive pool of materials on embryonic mammals.

In 1910, a professorship in comparative embryology was set up for him in Utrecht, which he took up himself on May 2, 1910 with a speech De plaats der vergelijkende embryologie in het hooger onderwijs . In 1901/02 he was also rector of the Utrecht Alma Mater, received honorary doctorates from six foreign universities (St. Andrews, Princeton, Cambridge, Glasgow, Giessen and Dublin) and was honored as a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion. From 1883 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Netherlands (KNAW) and many foreign academic and scientific societies.

The collection created by him and JP Hill with around 80,000 histological specimens has been in the Berlin Museum of Natural History since 2004 and is part of the Humboldt University.

Works

• The head skeleton of the Holocephales. 1876
• The genera of European Nemerteans critically revised. 1879
• Report on the Nemertea, collected by BL MS Challenger. 1881
• Proneomenia Sluiteri with remarks on the anatomy of the Amphineura. 1881
• The ancestral forms of the Chordata. 1883
• Proeve eener ontwikkelingsgeschiedenis van Lineus obscures. 1885
• Dondersia festiva, genus et species nova. 1888
• The germinal vesicle of Tarsius. A tool for a sharper definition of certain mammalian orders. Leipzig, 1896
• The Descent of the Primates; lectures delivered on the occasion of the sesquicentennial celebration of Princeton University. New York, 1897
• De evolution in nieuwe banen. 1902 (Rector's speech)
• Mammalian ontogenesis and its importance for the phylogeny of the vertebrates. Jena, 1909

literature

• P. Smit: Hubrecht. Ambrosius Arnold Willem . In: Johannes Charité: Biographical Woordenboek van Nederland . The Hague, 1979, vol. 1, (Dutch)
• Anthony Winkler Prins : Geïllustreerde encyclopaedie. 1908, Vol. 9., p. 439
• How is that? Uitgevers_Maatschappij "Vivat", Amsterdam, 1902, p. 217

Web links

• Literature on Ambrosius Arnold Willem Hubrecht of the Digital Library of the Netherlands (DBNL)
• Biographies Ambrosius Arnold Willem Hubrecht 1853-1915, PDF (English)
• Hubrecht, Ambrosius Arnold Willem at encyclopedia.com (English)
• Utrecht University Museum (Dutch)