Franz Leuthardt (paleontologist)

Monument stone at the Burg secondary school in Liestal

Gravestone in the Liestal cemetery

Franz Leuthardt (born December 7, 1861 in Arlesheim , † December 5, 1934 in Liestal ) was a Swiss paleontologist (also paleobotanist ) and geologist .

Life

Leuthardt was the son of a bricklayer, grew up in Arlesheim and went to school in Therwil and to the trade school in Basel. He studied zoology and geology at the University of Basel , where he was assistant to the zoologist Ludwig Rütimeyer from 1884 to 1889 (and during this time also held courses in zoology and comparative anatomy) and received his doctorate there in 1888. The dissertation was on the reduction of the number of fingers and toes in ungulates (extinct and the various degrees of skeletal reduction of recent species). From 1889 to 1936 he was a teacher at the Liestal district school, where he was rector from 1919. In addition, from 1893 to 1934 he was a curator at the Baselbieter canton museum in Liestal, for which he also provided the basis of the natural history collection (with insects, fossils and, for example, a leopard skull). He has published on geology, paleontology, biology (including entomology) and prehistoric archeology in the area around Basel. Leuthardt founded the Baselland Natural Research Society in 1900, of which he was president until 1934. He was also President of the Nature Conservation Commission of both Basels founded in 1906. He gave many lectures and wrote for the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung. Leuthardt was a councilor.

He also created many geological reports, including for a better water supply. He researched the stratigraphy of the Swiss Jura and the Keuper flora (including outcrops on the Birs near Münchenstein , district of New World ). He also campaigned for nature conservation in his homeland.

Leuthard also had contact with the painter and prehistory researcher Fritz Pümpin . He is the father of the biochemist Franz Leuthardt (1903–1985). One of his students in Liestal was the geologist Karl Strübin , who later became a teacher in Liestal himself.

Honors

The Triassic fern Cladophlebis leuthardtii LEONARDI was named after Franz Leuthardt in 1953.

Fonts

• The Keuper flora from Neuewelt near Basel, Part I phanerogams. Treatises of the Swiss Palaeontological Society, Volume 30, 1903, pp. 1–23 Archives
• The Keuper flora from Neuewelt near Basel, II. Part cryptogams. Treatises of the Swiss Palaeontological Society, Volume 31, 1904, pp. 25–46 Archives
• New prehistoric and early historical finds from Baselland. Naturforschende Gesellschaft Baselland, 8th activity report, Liestal 1930, pp. 132–149
• The minerals of the Basler Jura, activity report Naturf. Ges. Baselland, Liestal 1931
• On the history of geological exploration of the Basler Jura, activity report Naturf. Ges. Baselland, Liestal 1933.

His complete list of publications is in F. Heinis, Bibliography of the natural scientific and local history literature relating to the area of ​​the canton of Baselland, activity reports of the Natural Research Society Baselland, 1911, 1925, 1932, 1936.

Web links

• Kaspar Birkhäuser, Lexicon of persons in the canton of Basel-Land
• Franz Leuthardt, naturalist and original, exhibition at the Canton Museum Baselland 2011 (PDF; 48 kB; German)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Volksstimme Sissach: Fritz Pümpin.