Douwe Casparus van Dam

DC van Dam and François PL Pollen c. 1864

Douwe Casparus van Dam (born September 28, 1827 in The Hague , † January 1, 1898 in Leiden ), also Latinized as Douwe Casparius van Dam , was a Dutch explorer and museum attendant.

Live and act

Van Dam's father Jacob van Dam was an organ builder . The family left The Hague when he was younger than three years old and moved to the province of Friesland . In December 1857 van Dam moved to Hillegersberg near Rotterdam , where he was employed as a bailiff . On July 27, 1859, he married Elisabeth Faber, who died in November of the same year. Douwe Casparus van Dam was a passionate hunter. In this capacity he met his friend François Pollen in Rotterdam . In 1863 they set off on an expedition to Madagascar on behalf of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie and reached Réunion in March 1864. After successful collecting activities in northern Madagascar , Mayotte , Nosy Be and Réunion , they returned to the Netherlands via Mauritius in July 1866. From 1868 to 1873 van Dam traveled to Madagascar for the second time, this time without pollen, but who financed this expedition. He was accompanied by Gideon van der Henst. In October 1873 van Dam moved to Krommenie near Zaandam in the province of North Holland , where he worked as a wine merchant . After a few subsequent moves, he finally lived in Leiden. In June 1875 he married Aafje Jans Swart. From this marriage four sons were born. When the Rijksmuseum voor Geologie en Mineralogie was separated from the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in 1878, the director Johann Karl Ludwig Martin gave van Dam a job as a caretaker in the new museum. In May 1891 he was charged with stealing gold and silver from the museum's collection and, after a police investigation, released in August 1891.

Together with pollen and van der Henst, van Dam discovered some new animal taxa, including the crown sifaka ( Propithecus coronatus ), the Madagascar goshawk ( Accipiter henstii ), the Madagascar purple heron ( Ardea purpurea madagascariensis ), the Mayotte lizard hawk ( Accipiter francesiae brutus ), the Comoros pigeon ( Columba pollenii ) and the Madagascar capo-owl ( Asio capensis hova ).

Dedication names

Hermann Schlegel named the Van Dam Vanga ( Xenopirostris damii ) in 1866 , Pieter Bleeker named the cichlid Paretroplus damii in 1868, and Samuel Constantinus Snellen van Vollenhoven named the butterfly species Acraea damii in 1869 in honor of van Dam.

literature

• LJ Dorr: Plant Collectors in Madagascar and the Comoro Islands . Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2000. ISBN 978-1900347181 : pp. 108-109
• Zoological negotiation : Volumes 309–311. Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie te Leiden, Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum (Netherlands), Netherlands. Ministerie van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk. 1948, p. 226