João Moojen

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João Moojen de Oliveira (born December 1, 1904 in Leopoldina , Minas Gerais , † March 31, 1985 in Rio de Janeiro ), commonly known as João Moojen , was a Brazilian zoologist . He was considered an expert on the systematics of rodents and primates , but also published ornithological studies.

Life

After completing secondary school at the Colégio Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro in 1921, Moojen studied from 1922 to 1925 at the Pharmaceutical Faculty of the Universidade do Rio de Janeiro . From 1925 to 1932 he worked as a pharmacist and teacher in Além Paraíba , Minais Gerais, where he taught the disciplines of natural history , natural sciences , physics , chemistry , French , English , geometry and the history of Brazil at the grammar school . From August 1933 to December 1937 he was head of the biology department of the Escola Superior de Agricultura e Veterinária do Estado de Minas Gerais in Viçosa , where he taught general biology and zoology, and occasionally parasitology and entomology .

In January 1939 Moojen was employed at the Museu Nacional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro . In the same year he was also full professor at the chair of general zoology and biology of the scientific faculty of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and from 1940 professor at the department of rodent research and pest control of the Ministry of Health. In the same year he was appointed a member of the Conselho Nacional de Caça e Pesca (National Hunting and Fishing Council) and in 1941 he became a member of the Abbink Mission, which was charged with studying fisheries in Brazil.

In 1943 he became a naturalist at the Department of Vertebrate and Invertebrate Zoology at the Museu Nacional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. From June 1941 to March 1945 and May 1948 he was head of the zoological department. From 1943 to 1945 he was a zoologist at the Rockefeller Foundation .

In 1945 he received a Guggenheim scholarship , with which he studied at the University of Kansas . In 1948 he was with the thesis Speciation in the Brazilian Spiny Council genus Proechimys, family Echimyidae under the direction of Eugene Raymond Hall for Ph.D. PhD.

In 1948 he was visiting professor of South American mammalogy at the University of Kansas.

In 1950 he received his doctorate in natural history from the Philosophical Faculty of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro . From 1950 to 1952 he was a zoologist at the Rio de Janeiro Zoological Garden .

From 1959 to 1962 he was commissioned by the federal government to organize the Parque Zoobotânico in Brasília . From 1959 to 1961 he was also director of the Brasília Conservation Agency. In 1961 and 1962 he was General Manager for Agriculture of the Federal District do Brasil .

In 1969 Moojen retired. In 1978 he was visiting professor for mammalogy at the Universidade de Brasília and from 1979 to 1985 visiting professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He was also a consultant for various pet food companies.

Moojen was married to Emília Costa Cruz Figueira and had four daughters.

In 1952, Moojen and Roland Sigurd Blinstrup were among the pioneers in breeding the Weimaraner dog breed in Brazil.

Research work

In September 1935 Moojen's first article, O pardal eo problema do povoamento ornitológico das cidades, appeared in the journal Minas Geraes. Orgão Official dos Poderes do Estado , his second in November 1935 with the title Aves e pragas domesticas in the magazine Folha Rural . In the February 1937 issue of the magazine O Campo , Moojen described his observations of plants, mammals, birds and fish on the banks of the Rio Matipó , a tributary of the Rio Doce . In the April 1938 edition of O Campo , he studied the economic value of the silky cowbird ( Molothrus bonariensis ). He examined the stomach contents of 150 specimens and came to the conclusion that only 2 percent contained remains of insects, mainly beetles. At the time of rice ripening, the stomach contained 100 percent of this grass. He also examined the nests of the morning bunting ( Zonotrichia capensis ) and found that they contained 75 percent of the butterflies eggs. So he suggested combating this parasite by destroying its eggs.

In 1942 Moojen published the study Ecogenização e domesticidade in the Boletim do Museu Nacional , in which he describes the problem of animal domestication through direct observation in nature and in captivity. According to Moojen, animals exhibit two types of adaptation: the first has an instinctive and specific character in which the animal comes into close contact with the environment and finds the necessary living conditions there; the second has an individual character, in which the animal is adapted to new environmental conditions that are not necessary, but affect the vital manifestations of the individual.

In 1943 he published the monograph As espécies brasileiras dos gêneros Echimys, Phyllomys e Cercomys (Echimyidae, Rodentia) on behalf of the Brazilian Ministry of Education .

In 1950 Moojen worked on Chambers's Encyclopaedia , a popular English-language encyclopedia, to which he contributed entries on South American mammals. In 1952 his best known book Os Roedores do Brasil was published , a standard work on the rodents of Brazil.

Between the 1930s and 1950s Moojen took part in numerous expeditions on which he collected 82,000 mammal samples for the Museu Nacional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. In 1943, he described Agricola Slim opossum ( cryptonanus agricolai ) and the subspecies Sciurus aestuans poaiae of Guiana-croissant 1948 subspecies Trinomys gratiosus gratiosus and Trinomys gratiosus bonafidei the delicate Atlantic sting rat as well as the lance Atlantic sting rat ( Trinomys paratus ), 1950, Kerr Coast hutia ( Phyllomys kerri ), in 1958 the subspecies Sciurus ignitus cabrerai of the Bolivian squirrel and in 1965 the genus of the mole mice ( Juscelinomys ) with the Candango mole mouse ( Juscelinomys candango ) as a type species . In 1997, twelve years after Moojen's death, the climbing guinea pig ( Kerodon acrobata ) was officially described for the first time , which was named but not described by Moojen in 1982.

Memberships

Moojen was a member of the Sigma Xi and Phi Sigma Scientific Associations , the American Society of Mammalogists, and the Cooper Ornithological Club .

Dedication names and honors

1944 described Otto Schubart the genus Moojenodesmus from the Doppelfüßerfamilie Vanhoeffeniidae . In 1945, Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão described the scorpion species Bothriurus moojeni from the family Bothriuridae . Paulo de Miranda-Ribeiro named the genus Moojenichthys from the family of the real tetras (Characidae) after Moojen in 1956 . In 1966 Alphonse Richard Hoge honored Moojen in the type epithet of the Brazilian lance viper ( Bothrops moojeni ). In 1992 the Moojen Atlantic spiny rat ( Trinomys moojeni ) and in 2005 the Moojen dwarf rice rat ( Oligoryzomys moojeni ) were named in honor of Moojen.

In 1993, the Universidade Federal de Viçosa founded the Museu de Zoologia João Moojen.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Hitoshi Nomura: Necrologico João Moojen de Oliveira (1904–1985) . (PDF) In: Revista Brasileira de Zoologia . 10, No. 3, 1993, pp. 553-558. doi : 10.1590 / S0101-81751993000300024 .
  2. ^ Paulo Roberto Godinho: Weimaraners Cariocas. (PDF) Jornal do Brasil , Rio de Janeiro of November 7, 1978, p. 9
  3. ↑ Otto Schubart: Os Diplopodos de Pirassununga. Acta Zoologica Lilloana, 2, Tucuman, 1944, pp. 321-440
  4. ^ Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão: Escorpioes Sul-Americanos. Arquivos do Museu Nacional Rio de Janeiro, Volume 40, 1945, pp. 7-468
  5. ↑ Paulo de Miranda-Ribeiro: On a new genus and new species of South American fishes. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Zoology, Copenhagen, 16 (Vertebrates), 1956, pp. 546-547
  6. ↑ Alphone Richard Hoge: Preliminary account on Neotropical Crotalinae (Serpentes: Viperidae). Memórias do Instituto Butantan 32 [1965], 1966, pp. 109-184
  7. ↑ Leila Maria Pessôa, Joao Alves de Oliveira, Sérgio Furtado dos Reis: A new species of spiny rat genus Proechimys, subgenus Trinomys (Rodentia: Echimyidae). Journal of mammalian history, Vol. 57, Jena, 1992, pp. 39-46
  8. ↑ Marcelo Weksler, Cibele R. Bonvicino: Taxonomy of pygmy rice rats genus Oligoryzomys Bangs, 1900 (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae) of the Brazilian Cerrado, with the description of two new species . (PDF) In: Arquivos do Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro . 63, No. 1, January 2005, ISSN  0365-4508 , pp. 113-130.
  9. ↑ Museu de Zoologia João Moojen
personal data
SURNAME Moojen, João
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moojen de Oliveira, João (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Leopoldina , Minas Gerais
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1985
Place of death Rio de Janeiro