Oology

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Egg collection in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum

The oology is the bird's eggs customer and a branch of Ornithology . In contrast to embryology , it deals with the outer shell of the eggs and not with their contents. Another neighboring area is nest science ( Kaliology ).

Oology is mainly concerned with the description and identification of eggs based on size, weight, shape and shape. Oological collections are also called oothecs. In the past, ornithologists often had large collections of eggs with nests of rare species. Today collecting eggs is prohibited. But there are still collectors who illegally obtain eggs from rare species.

Illegal egg collectors

Jeffrey Lendrum, nicknamed " Pablo Escobar of eggs" by the British press , was arrested by customs officials at London's Heathrow Airport in 2018 while smuggling 19 birds of prey eggs valued at € 118,000. A British court sentenced Lendrum, a Rhodesian and former member of the special forces of the Rhodesian Army, to more than three years in prison in January 2019. He has already been arrested five times on three different continents. In January 2020, another court hearing was held on an extradition request from Brazil , as he fled Brazil in 2016 despite paying bail, where he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for attempting to smuggle peregrine falcons out of the country. The 58-year-old received his first conviction in 2020 at the age of 22. Less than half a dozen egg theft cases are reported around the world each year. Some of the species affected are extremely rare, and even small amounts of eggs illegally taken from the wild can have a significant impact on threatened populations. The Financial Times called Lendrum "the greatest bird of prey thief in the world". Joshua Hammer wrote about Lendrum the book The Falcon Thief (translated: The Falcon Thief ), which is about the robbery of falcon eggs in northern Quebec.

literature

  • Friedrich W. Baedeker: The eggs of the European birds. Painted from nature . Baedeker Verlag, Leipzig 1855/1863 (2 vols .; together with Christian Ludwig Brehm ).
  • Colin J. Harrison: Young birds, eggs and nests of all birds in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East ("A field guide to the nests, eggs and nestlings of European birds"). 2nd edition AULA-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2004, ISBN 3-89104-685-5 (reprint of the Hamburg 1975 edition).
  • Wolfgang Makatsch : The eggs of the birds of Europe. A representation of the breeding ecology of all breeding birds in Europe . Publishing house Neumann-Neudamm, Melsungen 1974/1976 (2 volumes).
  • Hans Noll: Determination table for nests and eggs of native birds , 3rd edition. Wepf Verlag, Basel 1968.
  • Eugène Rey: The eggs of the birds of Central Europe . Verlag Krüger, Lobenstein 1912 (2 volumes).
  • Max Schönwetter (author), Wilhelm Meise (ed.): Handbook of Oology . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1967/1992 (2 volumes).
  • E. Willibald: The nests and eggs of the birds that breed in Germany and the neighboring countries . Koch Verlag, Leipzig 1886.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pablo Escobar of eggs: Jeffrey Lendrum The Economic Times of January 22, 2020, accessed January 22, 2020