Ludwig Glauert

Ludwig Glauert (born May 5, 1879 in Ecclesall , Sheffield , Yorkshire , † February 1, 1963 in Perth , Western Australia ) was an Australian herpetologist , paleontologist , geologist and museum director of English origin. He was considered a specialist in the reptiles , amphibians and scorpions of Western Australia.

Live and act

Glauert was the son of Johann Ernst Louis Henry Glauert, a merchant and cloth manufacturer, and his wife Amanda, née Watkinson. He went to school in Sheffield. After training at the Technical College and later at University College in Sheffield, Glauert worked as a lecturer in geology at University College. In 1900 he became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London . Since he could not get a permanent job in his chosen field, he decided to emigrate to Australia. In 1908 Glauert moved with his wife Winifrede Aimée, née Berresford, to Freemantle near Perth in Western Australia. In July of the same year he had a temporary job as a field geologist at the Geological State Survey, where he identified, classified and described the material collected by his superiors for two years. From 1910 he was a permanent member of the Western Australian Museum , where he was promoted to keeper for geology and ethnology in 1914 . From 1909 to 1915 he carried out excavations in the Margaret River Caves, where he discovered the fossil remains of monotones and marsupials from the limestone deposits of the Pleistocene . In addition, he expanded his research interests to include the Australian Aborigines and was involved in nature conservation. Ludwig Glauert became a member of the Paleontological Society in the founding year 1912 . In October 1917 he joined the armed forces of the Australian Imperial Force and served briefly overseas. After the war he gave lectures on scientific subjects to soldiers and studied the natural history material of Australia in the British Museum. In 1920 he returned to Perth and became the keeper of the biological collection of the Western Australian Museum. In 1927 he became a senior curator and in 1954 he became director of the museum, a position he held until his retirement in 1956. In 1928 he received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Australia .

Due to financial considerations, Glauert's field work was limited to the region near Perth, but he took part in two expeditions north of Perth, one in 1922 to the Murchison district and another along the Gascoyne River in 1928. He also carried out extensive collections Rottnest Island (1930), in the Swan Coastal Plain and in the Darling Ranges in the Perth area. For a long time he was the only herpetologist in this territory, a region that encompasses a third of Australia. That situation changed in 1962 when he received support from Albert Russell Main of the University of Western Australia and his collaborator Glen Milton Storr , who in 1962 became the curator of the herpetological department of the Western Australian Museum.

Between 1923 and 1962 Glauert published 33 scientific publications on amphibians and reptiles, 13 of which appeared in a numbered series under the title Herpetological Miscellanea . His most famous books are the Handbook of the Snakes of Western Australia (1950, with a second edition in 1957) and the Handbook of the Lizards of Western Australia . He also wrote articles for The West Australian newspaper under the pseudonym Jay Penne .

Glauert described several Pleistocene monotremes and marsupials, including the giant long-beaked echidna Zaglossus hacketti that sthenurinae and Wombatart Vombatus hacketti that recent Süßwasserasselart Paramphisopus palustris as well as some recent species of reptiles, including Brachyurophis approximans , reginae Diporiphora , Egernia Douglasi , Pogona microlepidota , reginae Proablepharus and Mertens Water monitor ( Varanus mertensi ).

Glauert was admitted to Hollywood Hospital in Perth on January 24, 1963 for an upcoming operation. However, he died on February 1, 1963, before this operation could take place.

Appreciations and dedication names

In 1948 he received the Australian Natural History Medallion and in 1956 he became an MBE . In 1945 he received the medal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, of which he was president in 1933 and 1947. 1957 Robert Mertens honored Glauert in the specific epithet of the Kimberley rock monitor ( Varanus glauerti ). In 1944 Gilbert Percy Whitley named the Glauert frogfish ( Allenichthys glauerti ) after Glauert.

literature

• Kraig Adler: Contributions to the History of Herpetology . Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles, 1989, ISBN 0-916984-19-2 , p. 101
• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson: The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2011, ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5 , p. 101

Web links

• Biography of CFH Jenkins, Australian Dictionary of Biography

Individual evidence

1. ^ Palaeontological Journal 1, Issue 1, March 1914