Carl Robert Osten-Sacken

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Carl Robert Osten-Sacken

Carl Robert (von der) Osten-Sacken , also Karl, Russian Роберт Романович Остен-Сакен , Robert Romanowitsch Osten-Saken , (born August 21, 1828 in Saint Petersburg ; † May 20, 1906 in Heidelberg ) was a Russian diplomat and entomologist specializing in Diptera (Diptera) from North America, which he with Hermann Loew built up a large collection.

Life

He was from the aristocratic Baltic German family Osten (Freiherr or Baron). His parents were Reinhold Friedrich von der Osten-Sacken and his wife Elisabeth von Engelhardt .

After training in Saint Petersburg in 1849, he entered the Russian diplomatic service. From 1856 to 1862 he was secretary of the Russian embassy in Washington, DC and from 1862 to 1871 consul general in New York (also during the civil war). In 1871 he retired from the diplomatic service, traveled a lot to Europe, but lived in Cambridge (Massachusetts) until 1877 , where he became acquainted with Louis Agassiz . Then he moved to Heidelberg as a starting point for trips through Europe to entomological collections (London, Oxford, Berlin, Paris, Vienna) to prepare a catalog of the Diptera of Europe. After 1877 he never returned to the United States.

He wrote an autobiography of his life as an entomologist. Osten-Sacken was an honorary doctor in Heidelberg.

plant

He built a large collection that he started in his youth (collecting almost everything except butterflies) and collected a lot during his time in North America, especially dipteras. But he also published on Diptera from Russia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Central America (generally America north of the Isthmus of Panama). Among other things, he dealt with gnats , horseflies and plant galls . There are around 180 publications by him.

He corresponded with Hermann Loew and translated his work into English, published in the Monographs of the Diptera of North America (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, published 1862 to 1873). Loew described the specimens from both collections, with additions by Osten-Sacken (only part 4 of 1869 was written entirely by Osten-Sacken.) Osten-Sacken mostly left the initial descriptions to Loew (he himself also had around 500 initial descriptions). Both built up a large collection of Diptera, with many type specimens, which went to the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard in 1977. For Loew's share in the collection (he described most of the specimens) Osten-Sacken arranged for financial compensation from the museum. Loew was terminally ill in 1877 when Osten-Sacken saw him for the last time in Guben (they only saw each other five times in total) to send the joint collection to Harvard. Many entomologists in the USA were involved in the collection, because Osten-Sacken advertised in order to get their help with the promise that they should stay in the USA. Osten-Sacken himself collected mainly on the east coast, where he was stationed, but also traveled to California (Sierra Nevada), Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

He published a catalog of the Diptera of North America, the second edition in 1878 with around 2500 listed species, which was mainly based on the work of Loew. The first edition from 1858 was based on older literature, comprised 1800 species, but contained many synonyma or poorly described species.

Around 1877 he acquired the collection of European dipteras from Philipp Christoph Zeller (1808–1883). The other collections of Osten-Sacken (especially European Diptera) went to the Russian Entomological Society and from there to the Zoological Museum Leningrad (1923), where it was destroyed by flooding in 1924. A special collection of oak galls and associated dipteras went to the American Entomological Society in Philadelphia, another partial collection of European dipteras went to the German Entomological Institute in Berlin-Dahlem (1911 via L. Oldenberg and Göler von Ravensberg). A larger study collection for beginners in entomology (which included 3800 species except butterflies) donated Osten-Sacken in 1870 to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Osten-Sacken is considered to be the founder of Chaetotaxie .

Fonts

  • Record of my life-work in entomology, 4 parts, first three Cambridge / Massachusetts 1903, 4th part Heidelberg 1904 (new edition 1978)
  • with Hermann Loew : Catalog of the described Diptera of North America, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 3, 1858, pp. 1–92
    • 2nd edition: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 16, 1878, pp. 1–276

literature

  • CP Alexander: Baron Osten Sacken and his Influence on American Dipterology, Annual Review of Entomology, 14, 1969, pp. 1–19, PDF (583 kB; English)
  • George Henry Verrall , Obituary in The Entomologist, 1906, Volume 39, p. 192

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Originally ten papers (Centuria) in the Berlin Entomological Journal 1861 to 1872
  2. ^ Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 8, 1869, pp. 1-345
  3. ↑ His valuable Diptera library was originally intended to go to Harvard, but was then widely dispersed after his death. This was all the more regrettable as Osten-Sacken himself made extensive bibliographical notes.
  4. ↑ A catalog published in 1905 already had around 5500 species and one of 1965 around 16,100 species
  5. ^ First in a work from 1881, expanded in: CR Osten-Sacken: An essay on comparative chaetotaxy, or the arrangement of characteristic bristles of Diptera, Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 1884, pp. 497-517, Biodiversity Library
personal data
SURNAME Osten-Sacken, Carl Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Osten-Sacken, Carl Robert von; Osten-Sacken, Karl Robert von; Остен-Сакен, Роберт Романович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian diplomat and entomologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1906
Place of death Heidelberg