Helmut Sturm (biologist)

Helmut Sturm (born May 15, 1929 in Heidesheim am Rhein ; † January 1, 2015 ) was a German zoologist and university professor . He described dozens of new species of the globally distributed Archaeognatha and was one of the few experts in this field internationally.

life and work

After graduating in 1948, Sturm studied biology, physics and chemistry in Mainz , completing the first state examination. In 1954 he received his doctorate with the topic: Contributions to the ethology of some Central German Machiliden. The work appeared in 1955 in the magazine for animal psychology. From 1954 to 1957 he was a fellow of the German Research Foundation. After his legal clerkship in Bingen and Bad Kreuznach , he passed the 2nd state examination in 1959 and was then an assessor for the teaching post in Idar-Oberstein . From 1960 to 1963 he taught as a lecturer at the PH Oldenburg and then followed an appointment as a lecturer at the PH Koblenz until 1967. From 1967 to 1969 he taught as a substitute for a professorship at the National University in Bogotá , Colombia . In 1970 he was appointed professor of biology at the PHN department in Hildesheim, where he researched and taught until his retirement in 1994. There he expanded the subject of biology both personally and professionally. With the central office for further education of the University of Hildesheim , he founded a contact course in ecology for interested teachers. In the first years of his activity in Hildesheim, there was not much time for his own scientific work, which is shown by the fact that the number of his scientific publications only rose sharply in the years before and after his retirement. His publications concern ethological aspects, morphological descriptions, the development, the systematics and some subsequent determinations, the ecology and evolution of the Machilidae . He described new species from Australia , Colombia, the Krakatau archipelago (Indonesia), Nepal , North America , Mexico , the Dominican islands (here fossil finds) and the Socotra archipelago. In addition to the machilids, he found other new species, e.g. B. a flightless Neuroptera species and Polylobus species in the Páramo region of the Andes . Since his first stay in Colombia, he has been researching the Páramo region in the Andes, where he was interested in the nature of the soil and the climate, the flora and fauna of the area, including the lakes and rivers, and not least the human impact on this area . In 1985 his book “Ecologia de los páramos andinos - una vision preliminar integrada” was published in Spanish with Orlando Rangel. In 1985 the work received the Colombian Concurso Nacional prize for research into the protection of nature and the environment. In 1998 “The Ecology of the Páramo Region in Tropical High Mountains” was published by Franz Becker Verlag Hildesheim, in which the Páramo regions of East Africa and Malaysia are compared.

Fonts (selection)

• Contributions to the ethology of some Central German Machilids from: Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie; Vol. 12, 3, Parey Verlag, 1955
• Animals easily identified: An identification book of native animals, their tracks and voices, Bonn, Dümmler, 1977, ISBN 3427330613
• Dümmler's identification books 2. Plants easily identified, Dümmler Verlag, 1993, ISBN 9783427330721
• Sturm, Helmut, University of Hildesheim; Machida, Ryuichiro, Uni Tsukuba / Japan: Archaeognatha, Handbuch der Biologie Volume 37 / IV, Berlin, New York, 2001 (English).

Web links

• Obituary for Helmut Sturm
• Exploring the rock divers
• Rare and lesser known fossils from the Malm near Hildesheim