Hermano Nicéforo María

Hermano Nicéforo María , actually Antoine Rouaire Siauzade (born February 29, 1888 in Lavoûte-Chilhac ( Haute-Loire ), France ; † February 24, 1980 in Fusagasugá , Colombia ) was a Franco-Colombian naturalist and clergyman.

Life

After his religious training in Luxembourg and Belgium (1905-1907) Nicéforo María joined the Order of the Marist School Brothers , a religious order that was founded in the name of the Virgin Mary for missionary and educational work. Hence his religious name, Brother Nicéforo María, is derived.

In 1908 Nicéforo María moved to Colombia, where he first taught at the Colegio de Jan José in Medellín ( Antioquia ) and then worked at the Natural History Museum. In 1922 he was transferred to the Instituto de La Salle in Bogotá , where he remained for the rest of his life. Eventually he became director of the Natural History Museum of the Instituto de La Salle . He did research all over Colombia and mainly collected small vertebrates for the museum. Long after giving up his expeditions, he was active as an active curator and collector until the last years of his life.

Nicéforo María showed a great interest in vertebrates of all kinds but also in crustaceans and spiders . His research focus, however, were the amphibians and reptiles , about which he wrote 38 scientific papers. His herpetological papers covered all groups of reptiles, especially snakes and turtles . His major work on reptiles, Los Ofidios de Colombia , was published in 1942. Nicéforo María also offered his help to other researchers by sending them collections of Colombian material or by facilitating their field work in Colombia. In 1961 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Católica de La Salle .

Dedication names

After Niceforo María include the Santander Wren ( Thryothorus nicefori ), the extinct Northern yellow-billed pintail ( Anas georgica niceforoi ), the bat micronycteris nicefori , the species of fish Pangio mariarum that Froschlurchgattung Niceforonia and numerous reptiles and amphibians, including Atractus nicefori , Gastrotheca nicefori , Atelopus nicefori , Leptotyphlops nicefori , Parvicaecilia nicefori , Anolis nicefori , Eleutherodactylus nicefori and Norops mariarum .

literature

• Kraig Adler: Contributions to the History of Herpetology , Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles. 1989: pp. 89-90.
• Gilberto Rodríguez: El naturalista Antoine Rouhaire (Hermano Nicéforo María) and the desarrollo de la zoología sistemática en Colombia . Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, 2002, 26, 99, pp. 229-237