Johann Siegfried Hufnagel

Johann Siegfried Hufnagel (born October 17, 1724 in Falkenwalde , Prenzlau district , † February 23, 1795 in Langenfeld , Sternberg district ) was a German pastor and lepidopterologist (butterfly scientist).

Life

Almost nothing was known about Hufnagel's life until the late 20th century. Even his first names were unknown. It was not until 1987 that Gerstberger and Stiesy succeeded in reliably identifying him based on the work by Fischer (1941) and determining his life data and some biographical information.

Hufnagel came from a Protestant pastor's family; the father (Joachim Friedrich Hufnagel, born November 29, 1680 Prenzlau, † February 15, 1755 Falkenwalde, matriculated December 2, 1705 in Halle Wittenberg, from 1713 Conrector in Crossen, 1721–1755 pastor in Falkenwalde) and the grandfather (Daniel Friedrich Hufnagel * August 16, 1650 Prenzlau, † May 24, 1701 Prenzlau, pastor to St. Nikolai) as well as the great-grandfather (Vitus Hufnagel, * 1607 in Pegnitz / Franconia, † July 15, 1666 in Prenzlau, pastor in Schönwerder), were already Been pastor. He probably completed his studies at a university in the north or east of Germany. In any case, he could not have come to Berlin until after graduating because Berlin had no university at the time. Between 1759 and 1767 the Berlin address calendar lists a “Hufnagel” or “Huffnagel” who was a praeceptor (teacher) at the Evangelical Lutheran Church at the Great Friedrichs Hospital and orphanage and who also lived in the orphanage. The correspondence with the career of young theologians who were usual at the time, who worked as teachers until they took up their first position, and above all Hufnagel's first pastor's position, which was held by Fischer, speak very much that this is the lepidopterist Johann Siegfried Hufnagel. Hufnagel took up this first pastor's position in 1767 in Petersberg (Oststernberg district; today Jemiołów, Swiebodzin district, Poland). From 1775 to 1795 he was pastor in Langenfeld (Oststernberg district, today Długoszyn, Sulecin district, Poland). Both places are located in what was then Neumark (East Brandenburg).

Work and effect

Between 1765 and 1767 Hufnagel published thirteen works on butterflies , ten of them in 1766 alone, all in the journal “Berlinisches Magazin, or collected [sic] writings and news for lovers of medicine, natural history and the pleasant sciences in general” . One of these works was devoted to pest control, four contained descriptions of individual species that were discussed in relatively detail and also illustrated, and the other eight formed a tabular treatment of the larger Lepidoptera (mainly the Macrolepidoptera ) of the Berlin area, which Hufnagel knew and which were represented in his collection. This series was often referred to as “The Tables” for short by later authors. The species descriptions in the tables are brief and short according to the form of representation. To make matters worse, Hufnagel was not yet familiar with a system for naming the drawing elements of Lepidoptera, which meant that some of his descriptions could hardly be interpreted. For example, the diagnosis for Phalaena grisea is as follows: “The gray moth. Very yellowish gray with many scattered gray and brown spots. "

By the mid-1770s at the latest, Hufnagel must have met Freiherrn SA von Rottemburg , who lived in Klemzig near Züllichau (Neumark). Hufnagel left his collection to him, along with detailed explanations of his publications. In 1775 and 1776 Rottemburg published a series of articles about Hufnagel's collection, in which he described many species in detail and thus for the first time clearly identified. It is only thanks to this work that most of Hufnagel's taxa can be identified. However, some animals were no longer in the collection at that time; in other cases there seems to have been a mix-up of species, so that not all ambiguities could be cleared up. Although many of Hufnagel's species were given priority, the authors of the early 19th century preferred to ignore these names or to put them in synonymy as uncommon or uncertain and at most to accept Rottemburg's more precise descriptions. Only after Philipp Christoph Zeller carried out an analysis of Hufnagel's work in 1844 did they become known to wider circles and the names gradually began to come into use.

The fate of Hufnagel's collection is unknown. If it was not returned to Hufnagel after processing, it should have remained in the Rottemburg family's possession and was destroyed after Rottemburg's death at the latest.

According to the current state of the nomenclature, 87 of Hufnagel's taxa are in use as valid species names for European butterflies. In zoological literature, his name is usually abbreviated to "Hufn."

Works

• Hufnagel [as H == n == l] (1765): Description of a rare, previously unknown caterpillar and the resulting phalanx . - Berlinisches Magazin, 1 (6): 648–654, 1 plate.
• Hufnagel (1766a): table of the day birds of the local area, on which those who love insects are determined the nature, time, place and other circumstances of the caterpillars and the butterflies that arise from them. - Berlinisches Magazin, 2 (1): 54–90.
• Hufnagel (1766b): Natural history of the Changeant or Schielervogel with its metamorphoses. - Berlinisches Magazin, 2 (2): 111-131, 1 plate.
• Hufnagel [als H - l] (1766c): Two table in which the evening birds (Sphinges Linnaei) are indicated and described according to the most noble circumstances. - Berlinisches Magazin, 2 (2): 174–195.
• Hufnagel [author not named] (1766d): Third table from the night birds. - Berlinisches Magazin, 2 (4): 391–437.
• Hufnagel [als H === l] (1766e): Thoughts on the means to exterminate the harmful caterpillars. - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (1): 3-19.
• Hufnagel [author not named] (1766f): Fourth table of the insects, or continuation of the table of the night birds of the local area, which includes the second class of these, namely the night owls (Noctuas [sic]). - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (2): 202–215.
• Hufnagel [author not named] (1766g): Continuation of the fourth table of the insects, especially of those so-called night owls as the second class of night birds in this area. - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (3): 279–309.
• Hufnagel (1766h): Second continuation of the fourth table of the insects, especially of those so-called night owls as the second class of night birds in this area. - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (4): 393-426.
• [Hufnagel] (1766i): Description of a very colorful caterpillar on the oak, and the resulting phalaena Phalaena aprilina minor. - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (6): 555–559, 1 pl.
• Hufnagel [as "H --- l"] (1766k): Description of a rare and particularly beautiful phalana. ( Phalaena pyritoides .). - Berlinisches Magazin, 3 (6): 560-562.
• Hufnagel (1767a): continuation of the table of the night birds, which contains the 3rd species of the same, namely the tension knives (Phalaenas Geometras [sic] Linnaei). - Berlinisches Magazin, 4 (5): 504-527.
• Hufnagel (1767b): III. Continuation of the table of the nocturnal birds, which contains the 3rd species of the same, namely the tension knives (Phalaenas Geometras [sic] Linnaei). - Berlinisches Magazin, 4 (6): 599–626.

Biographical sources

• O. Fischer: Evangelical pastor book for the Mark Brandenburg since the Reformation . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1941.
• M. Gerstberger, L. Stiesy: Butterflies in West Berlin. Part II. Sponsorship Association of Berlin's Natural Science Museums V., Berlin 1987.