Friedrich von Huene

Preparation of a skeleton of Stahleckeria potens by Friedrich von Huene (left) and a colleague in 1932

Friedrich Richard Freiherr von Hoynigen called Huene (born March 22, 1875 in Tübingen ; † April 4, 1969 ibid) was a German vertebrate paleontologist . In the early 20th century he was the leading expert on fossil reptiles and amphibians in Europe, describing more species of dinosaurs than any other European at the time.

Life

After studying and doing a doctorate at the University of Tübingen in 1898, Hoyningen-Huene became a professor of paleontology there. His doctorate was still concerned with Silurian brachiopods, but at the turn of the century he switched to the subject of fossil amphibians and reptiles. In the course of his career as a researcher that spanned more than six decades, he gained a reputation as a specialist beyond the borders of Germany and Europe, especially for dinosaurs.

One of the peculiarities of his research life was the discovery of a herd of 35 plateosaurs that had been buried by a mudslide. He published the description of dinosaur species such as Saltopus (1910), Proceratosaurus (1926), Antarctosaurus (1929) and many others and coined some important higher taxa such as the infraorder Prosauropoda (1920) and the suborder Sauropodomorpha (1932). Friedrich von Huene undertook several extensive research and collecting trips to continents outside Europe. In 1911 he traveled to North America and became familiar not only with the large museum collections, but also with the excavation methods in the field. In 1923/1924 a trip to Argentina (and Patagonia) followed, which again focused on the museums as well as the excavations, a visit to the museums and colleagues in South Africa followed immediately. Another classic trip to South America (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay) took place in 1928/1929, during the excavations of which extensive and largely unknown material from several reptile orders was recovered, including especially large, mammal-like reptiles such as Stahleckeria . The scientific evaluation and publication of this material was presented as an example in the work “The fossil reptiles of the South American Gondwanaland” (1935–1942). In 1955 he traveled to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Russian colleagues.

Some fossil species were named after him in honor of Huenes; the famous explorer of the Cambrian fauna of the Burgess Pass, Charles Walcott , named a genus of brachiopods after him. The 1995 described Liassaurus huenei , an early carnivorous theropod , was named in his honor; However, due to a non-recognized scientific description , the name is a noun nudum and therefore not valid (valid).

F. v. Huene became a member of the Swiss Geological Society in 1896, was one of the founding members of the Paleontological Society in August 1912 and became the first secretary together with Gustav von Arthaber on September 6, 1912 . In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina , and in 1948 he received the Leopold von Buch plaque . In 1955 he became an honorary member of the Paleontological Society and in 1952 the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology . Since 1929 he was a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences . In 1955 he became an honorary member of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg .

Fonts (selection)

• The fossil reptile order Saurischia, its development and history . In: Monogr. Geol. Palaeontol. (ser. 1) 4; Pp. 1–361 (1932)
• Paleontology and Phylogeny of the Lower Tetrapods , G. Fischer 1956
• The dinosaur world and its historical connections , G. Fischer 1952, 2nd edition 1954
• The creation of man , Anker Verlag 1952
• Memories of work , hall, printing of the orphanage 1944
• The dinosaurs of the European Triassic formation with consideration of the non-European occurrences , geological and palaeontological treatises, Supplement-Volume 1, pp. 1-419, Jena, G. Fischer 1908
• Contributions to the knowledge of some Saurischier of the Swabian Triassic , New Yearbook for Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology 1915, pp. 1–27
• The ichthyosaurs of the Lias and their connections . Monographs on Geology and Paleontology, 1922; Pp. 1-122
• A new pelycosaur from the lower permformation of Saxony . Geological and Paleontological Treatises 14, 1925, pp. 1-52
• Complete osteology of a plateosaurid from the Swabian Keuper , Geological-Paläontologische Abhandlungen, New Series, Volume 15, 1926, pp. 139–179
• Die Plateosaurier von Trossingen , Die Umschau, Volume 4, 1929, pp. 880–882
• Life picture of the Saurischier occurrence in the uppermost Keuper of Trossingen , Palaeobiologica, Volume 1, 1928, pp. 103-116
• The South African Karroo Formation as a geological and faunistic view of life , Borntraeger Verlag 1925 (progress in geology and palaeontology 4.12)
• Vertebrate fauna of the Permian mainland in Europe and their connections , Tübinger Naturwiss. Abh., Volume 9, Enke Verlag 1925
• The Placodontier. 4. On the way of life and kinship of Placodus . In: Treatises of the Senckenbergische Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Vol. 38, Issue 4, Part 2, Frankfurt am Main 1933, pp. 365–382
• Henodus chelyops, a new placodon animal . Palaeontographica 84, 1936, pp. 97-148
• The way and work of God in nature and the Bible: biblical discussions by a paleontologist , 3rd edition, Wilhelm Schneider Verlag, Siegen 1947
• Creation and natural science , Quell Verlag der Evangelische Gesellschaft 1948

literature

• Frank Westphal:  Huene, Friedrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 740 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Michael W. Maisch: Friedrich von Huene (1875–1969) - The Tübingen dinosaur hunter . In: Norbert Hauschke, Volker Wilde (Hrsg.): Trias- a completely different world . Pfeil, Munich 1999, p. 607-610 .
• Wolf-Ernst Reif, Wiltrud Lux: Evolution theory and religious concept in the work of the vertebrate paleontologist Friedrich Freiherr von Huene (1875-1969) . In: Building blocks for the history of the University of Tübingen, Volume 3, Tübingen 1987, pp. 91–140.
• Friedrich von Huene: Work memories . in: Autobiographies of Naturalists No. 2, Kaiserlich Leopoldinisch - Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (Ed.). Halle (Saale) 1944

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich von Huene in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Genealogical Handbook of the Baltic Knights , Part 2 Estonia , Vol. 1, Görlitz, 1930, p. 128.
2. ^ Palaeontological Journal 1, Issue 1, March 1914
3. ↑ Huene Friedrich von. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed November 4, 2015 . 
4. ^ Honorary members of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg