Bernhard Peyer

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Bernhard Peyer (born July 25, 1885 in Schaffhausen , † February 23, 1963 in Zurich ) was a Swiss paleontologist and anatomist .

Life

Bernhard Peyer was born the son of the textile manufacturer Johann Bernhard Peyer and Sophie Frey in Schaffhausen. He studied natural sciences at the Universities of Tübingen , Munich and Zurich . He received his doctorate in Zurich in 1911.

He made numerous scientific trips to Rovigno , England and South America. From 1924 he led many excavations in the area of Monte San Giorgio , which brought important fossils of vertebrates to the day and made him internationally known. In 1929 he found an almost complete skeleton of a giraffe-necked dinosaur . The most beautiful finds from this period are now exhibited in the Paleontological Museum of the University of Zurich . Another important research focus of Peyer's was the evolution of mammals. He carried out excavations in the Klettgau region , where he discovered the teeth of mammals and mammal-like reptiles from the Upper Triassic in Hallau in 1942 .

He completed his habilitation at the University of Zurich in 1918 and was appointed associate professor in 1930. From 1943 to 1955 he was the first full professor of paleontology and comparative anatomy at the University of Zurich. From 1940 to 1942 he was Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. Peyer was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (1936) and the Académie des Sciences (1957) in Paris.

In 1926 he married Hildegard Amsler, the widow of his cousin Hans Hermann Peyer, and thus became the stepfather of Hans Conrad Peyer . The first significant find in 1924 was named after the first name of his wife Hildegard, a plaster tooth lizard with the name Cyamodus hildegardis . Their marriage had five children.

Fonts (selection)

  • The Triassic fauna of the Ticino Limestone Alps . Birkhäuser, Basel 1955.
  • The reptiles from Monte San Giorgio. The fossil excavations of the Zoological Museum of the University of Zurich in the area of ​​Monte San Giorgio on Lake Lugano, 1924–1944. Fretz, Zurich 1944.
  • History of wildlife. Europa-Verlag, Stuttgart 1949.
  • The teeth. Its origin, its history and its purpose. Springer, Berlin 1963.
  • Comparative odontology. Translated from the German manuscript and edited by Rainer Zangerl . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1968.

literature

Trivia

  • In the village of Meride , at the foot of Monte San Giorgio, a street was named after him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paleontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich . University of Zurich website. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Peyer, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss paleontologist and anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1963
Place of death Zurich