Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger

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Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (born November 19, 1775 in Braunschweig , † May 10, 1813 in Berlin ) was a German zoologist and entomologist .

Life

Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger was born the sixth of eight siblings. His father, the Brunswick merchant Johann Jakob Illiger, placed great value on a good education for his children, despite his limited financial means, two of whom, in addition to Karl Illiger, embarked on a scientific career.

Education

Illiger first attended private school, where he showed great interest in nature research as a child and started his own botanical collection. He later attended the Martineum in Braunschweig , then the Catharineum , where he continued his natural history studies, but also showed above-average performance in the other subjects. At the age of 15 he received natural history lessons from the natural scientist and mathematician Johann Hellwig , who recognized Illiger's interest and zeal for nature and promoted it to the best of his ability. Soon Illiger Hellwigs became a constant companion on excursions and an assistant in the evaluation and organization of his collections and preparation of his publications and finally lived in the house of his teacher, who had become a good friend to him.

Study and first work

In 1793 Illiger began to study medicine by attending the Collegium Carolinum . His weak physical constitution was not able to cope with these exertions, however, a life-threatening illness forced him to give up his study plans the following year. In Hellwig's house he recovered from his illness thanks to the care of Hellwig's oldest daughter. During the time of his recovery, he studied Hellwig's important insect collection and decided to devote himself entirely to entomology, since continuing medical studies was impossible for health reasons. He obtained the writings of all the important entomologists of his time and published his first entomological work in 1794: "Description of some new beetles". But his name was already known in entomologists' circles, as Hellwig disseminated some of his pupil's new findings and corrections in his writings. The first larger work edited by Illiger, published in 1795 under the name Hellwigs, was the second edition of the Fauna Etrusca by Pietro Rossi . In 1798 he published the list of beetles in Prussia. Designed by Johann Gottlieb Kugelann a major revision of the native beetles in which he made proposals to improve the terminology and scheme.

A scholarship from the Duke of Brunswick, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand , which he granted at the intercession of Hellwig, enabled Illiger to study in Helmstedt from Easter 1799 . In the same year he moved to Göttingen . In 1800 his first major work , which he had created entirely himself, was an attempt at a systematic complete terminology for the animal and plant kingdoms , which he dedicated to the duke. The book is considered to be a great advance in the zoological system of the time.

Further works were a second edition of the Directory of Viennese Butterflies by Michael Denis and Ignaz Schiffermüller and the translation of a previously inaccessible work on insects by Guillaume-Antoine Olivier . He supplemented both works with his own additions and improvements.

Activity in Braunschweig

In 1802, on his return to Braunschweig, he met Graf von Hoffmannsegg , a research traveler who had collected a huge collection of insects through his own collecting activities and that of a collector he employed, mostly from other continents. Hoffmannsegg wanted to work with Hellwig on the systematic processing of the material, but he transferred the work to Illiger for reasons of time. A small pension from the Duke and the modest fees that Illiger received for his publications were enough to reward him for this work, to which he devoted himself with full zeal. Graf Hoffmannsegg soon became a good friend of Illiger, and he also corresponded with many important entomologists throughout Europe, so that he could improve his education increasingly. In order to publish the new findings that he had worked out from the wealth of material in the Hoffmannsegg collection, Illiger founded his own entomological journal, which came out 1802-1807 and mainly contained his own work. These publications brought him great recognition and, at the suggestion of Fabricius, the doctoral degree from the University of Kiel . In addition to many entomological works, he also published some papers on mammals .

Activity in Berlin

With the Duke's death in 1806, Illiger lost his pension and the prospect of permanent employment. He therefore willingly followed Count Hoffmannsegg to Berlin, also because of the uncertain political conditions in his hometown. In Berlin he worked on the identification and order of South American mammals and birds. Due to another outbreak of his illness, he had to give up this activity after seven months and return to Braunschweig. He subsequently recovered and in 1810 was finally given a position for life, namely the supervision of the royal collection of natural objects in Berlin, which was assigned to him by Wilhelm von Humboldt , then head of the section for culture and public education. The main activity was the processing of the extensive mammal collection, which resulted in work on the geographical distribution of mammals and in 1811 the Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium . This work builds on that of Cuvier , but takes into account a number of new findings, the example, monotremes as a separate order of the tooth arms split off. In addition, Illiger describes in this work, which is considered to be one of the most important zoological works of its time, a large number of new genera, consistently uses a biological species concept and contributes significantly to the introduction of the family as a systematic rank.

Illiger's health seemed stable and with the prospect of a secure future he married Hellwig's eldest daughter. As early as the winter of 1812, however, he suffered another outbreak of his illness, which he was able to overcome again in order to begin the systematic recording of Brazilian amphibians in the course of that year. In the spring of 1813, however, his suffering broke out with such severity that improvement and recovery were no longer possible. Illiger died on the night of May 9th to 10th, 1813 at the age of only 37.

Honors

From 1808 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1810 he was accepted as a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

Carl Ludwig Blume honored him by naming the genus Illigera ( Hernandiaceae ) in 1826.

In the English-speaking world, the red-backed macaw ( Primolus maracana ) has, among other things, the name Illiger's Macaw.

Fonts (selection)

  • Description of some new beetles , in: Schneider's Entomologisches Magazin (1794)
  • News of a devastation in several barley and oat fields around Braunschweig, probably caused by insects , in: Braunschweigisches Magazin 50/1795
  • List of beetles in Prussia. Designed by Johann Gottlieb Kugelann in 1798
  • The worm dryness of the Harz , in: Braunschweigisches Magazin 49–50 / 1798
  • The Erdmandel , in: Braunschweigisches Magazin 2/1799
  • Attempt at a systematic complete terminology for the animal and plant kingdoms . Fleckeisen, Helmstädt 1800 ( online ).
  • About the South American Belt Animals , in: Wiedemann's Archive for Zoology 1804.
  • The wild horses in America , in: Braunschweigisches Magazin 7/1805.
  • News from the horned cattle in Paraguay in South America , in: Braunschweigisches Magazin 15-16 / 1805.
  • Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium . 1811.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members of the previous academies. Karl Illiger. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on April 8, 2015 .
  2. CL Blume: Bijdragen tot de flora van Nederlandsch Indië 1826, p. 1153, scanned original

Web links