Otto Staudinger (lepidopterist)

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Otto Staudinger

Otto Staudinger (born May 2, 1830 in Groß Wüstenfelde near Teterow , Mecklenburg-Schwerin , † October 13, 1900 in Lucerne ) was a German lepidopterist (butterfly scientist) and insect trader.

Life

On his father's side, Staudinger came from a Bavarian family. His grandfather, the agriculture teacher Lucas Andreas Staudinger was born in Ansbach and came to Holstein at the end of the 18th century, where Staudinger's father, Johann Diederich Andreas Staudinger (1797–1851), was born in Groß Flottbek . His mother, Adolfine Staudinger (née Schroeder) (1794–1876), was from Mecklenburg and was born in Putzar on the estate of Count Schwerin. When Otto Staudinger was born in 1830, his father, who had learned agriculture from Johann Heinrich von Thünen , was the tenant of the Groß Wüstenfelde manor. The tutor there, Wagner, collected beetles and introduced the boy to entomology at the age of six to seven . In the summer of 1843, his father acquired the Lübsee manor near Güstrow , where Otto began collecting butterflies, now under the guidance of Hermann, his tutor. From October 1845 he attended the Friedrich-Franz-Gymnasium (Parchim) and passed the Abitur in the summer of 1849.

In October 1849 he began studying medicine in Berlin , but under the influence of the zoology lectures given by the private lecturer Dr. Stein in the second semester of the natural sciences. From June 1850 to autumn 1851 he undertook entomological excursions and right on the first one, the discovery of a series of newly hatched Synanthedon tipuliformis in the Stralau cemetery justified his preference for the glass winged birds ( Sesiidae ). He especially joined the students Theodor Johannes Krüper (1829-1917; later director of the natural history museum in Athens) and Carl Eduard Adolph Gerstäcker (later professor in Greifswald) and became acquainted with the Berlin entomologists of the time, especially Grabow, Simon , Scherffling, Libbach, Glasbrenner, Mützel, Streckfuß, Walther, the Kricheldorff brothers, Ribbe and Kalisch. The collecting areas were mainly the Grunewald , the Jungfernheide (where Staurophora celsia was still present at that time ), the Wuhlheide , the limestone mountains near Strausberg and the lonely town of Finkenkrug in the middle of the forest .

In the autumn of 1851 Staudinger seems to have fallen ill (the biographical sources say nothing about the nature of the disease), because he was advised to go on a recreational trip "after a long illness" . He spent mid-May to mid-August 1852 on Lake Geneva and in the Mont Blanc area , then hiked over the Simplon Pass to Genoa , and from there at the end of August - always on foot - along the Riviera to Nice , Marseille and Montpellier , where he went to Stayed at the end of November and made contacts with French collectors (probably Daube, Germain, Guinard). After visiting home, he traveled to Paris in January 1853 to perfect his French and to learn Italian and English. At Easter 1853 he resumed his studies in Berlin and intensively collected glass-winged birds (Sesiidae) with Kalisch, Ribbe and the two Kricheldorffs . In mid-March 1854, he was with the work De Sesiis agro Berolinensis Dr. phil. PhD.

From April 1 to October 1854, Staudinger, with recommendations from Alexander von Humboldt , undertook a trip to Sardinia with the aim of discovering the caterpillars of Papilio hospiton , which finally succeeded after many unsuccessful attempts. In 1855 he collected in the Alps (Carinthia, Großglockner area ). In April 1856 he went on a collecting trip to Iceland with C. Kalisch . In the fall of 1856 he got engaged to the daughter of the entomologist Grabow; the marriage took place on January 21, 1857. That same evening, the couple traveled via Paris, Lyon , Marseille - where both learned Spanish within ten days - Barcelona , Valencia and Almería to Malaga , where they stayed for a month. They then spent nine months in Granada , where they lived on the Alhambra and a daughter was born to them on November 2nd. In mid-December they traveled via Málaga to Chiclana de la Frontera near Cádiz , spent the first half of 1858 there and returned to Berlin in July of that year. Because of the costs of these trips, Staudinger began to sell the yields, initially with the assistance of his father-in-law, and so gradually an extensive natural produce store was established. From the beginning of 1859 the Staudingers lived in Dresden , where their son Paul was born that same year . Staudinger built the Diana bath in Dresden in 1864, a versatile system with tubs, steam and Irish-Roman baths, which have inspired him since he himself had a bad cold on the trip and had experienced their healing properties. At Easter 1874 the city apartment, which had become too cramped, moved to the Villa Diana in Blasewitz . In 1879 Andreas Bang-Haas (1846–1925) joined the company as an employee, married Staudinger's daughter in 1880 and became a co-owner in 1884 or 1887. In 1884 the institute had to move to the larger Villa Sphinx , built especially for this purpose ; after another 10 years a two-story wing had to be added. From the mid-1880s onwards, Staudinger placed management more and more in Bang-Haas' hands and now concentrated entirely on taxonomic work. Otto Staudinger died on October 13, 1900 on a holiday in Lucerne. He was buried in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden.

Other important collecting trips

  • 1860 Norway, Finnmarken (with MF Wocke).
  • 1862 Castile, La Granja, San Ildefonso.
  • 1866 South of France, Ardèche.
  • 1872 Cilician Taurus (with E. Funke).
  • 1875 Turkey, Amasia (with E. Funke and F. Zach).
  • 1880 Southern Spain, Chiclana and Granada (with wife, mother-in-law and the Korb family).
  • 1884 Castile, San Ildefonso with a detour to Lisbon (with A. Bang-Haas and his son Paul).
  • 1887 Algeria, Biskra and Lambèse, Djebel Aures.
  • In addition, shorter trips to the Alps and relaxation trips.

Work and effect

Otto Staudinger

One of Staudinger's most valuable and enduring achievements was the publication of three catalogs of the butterfly fauna of Europe and finally the entire Palearctic . They were immediately accepted by the lepidopterists, used as a basis for faunistic studies and also stimulated numerous systematic and taxonomically oriented investigations. As early as 1861, Staudinger, together with Max Ferdinand Wocke, published a catalog of the lepidoptera in Europe and the neighboring countries , in which he worked on the so-called large butterflies and Wocke, the so-called small butterflies. The bilingual German-French edition from 1871 (Catalog of the Lepidoptera of the European Fauna Area) was distributed by the same authors. The catalog of the lepidoptera of the Palaearctic fauna area, edited together with Hans Rebel (1861-1940) and published by him in 1901, became a standard work .

Not to be underestimated is the effect that Staudinger played as the initiator of entomological and general natural history research in many parts of the world. He not only bought up yields from the eastern Palearctic and from many tropical regions and worked on them taxonomically, but he also sent collectors very specifically to entomologically little-known or completely unexplored areas:

  • Amur and Ussuri region (Vladivostok, Suifun, Sutschan, Askold Island: Friedrich Dörries & Brothers, 1877–1898, Jablonovoi Mountains ["Apple Mountains"], 1896),
  • NE Siberia (on Witim: O. Herz, 1888),
  • Tarbagatai (from Saisan: J. Haberhauer, 1877),
  • Altai (near Ongadai, Bashkam, Tschuja valley: HJ Elwes and Borezowsky, 1898),
  • Mongolia (Uliassutai: for H. Leder collecting Kosak, 1893; Kenteigebirge: F. Dörries, 1889, 1893; around Urga: J. Haberhauer, 1895; Changai: H. Leder, 1899),
  • Tibet (between Lob-nor and Kuku-nor, E. Rückbeil for R. Tancré, 1893–1893),
  • Chinese Turkestan (Korla: J. Haberhauer, 1897),
  • east of Tian-Schan (Chamyl et al .: J. Haberhauer, 1896),
  • Tian-Schan (between Issyk-Kul and Kuldja: E. Rückbeil, 1895?),
  • Asia Minor (Mardin, Gaziantep, Merzifon, Malatya, Hadjin , Kayseri, Tokat, Antakya, Marasch et al .: J. Manisadjian, 1875–1897),
  • Taurus (in Zeitun: Haradjian, 1897),
  • Syria (F. Zach),
  • Palestine (Bacher, 1896–1899; J. Paulus, 1890–1898),
  • Sierra Leone and Cameroon (Dr. Preuss, 1866 ff.),
  • Indo-Australian archipelago (Waigeu, Moluccas [Ambon, Batjan, Ceram, Halmahera], Celebes [Minahassa], Sangir, Philippines [Jolo, East Mindanao, Mindoro], Timor, Palawan, Sarawak: Dr. KK Platen, 1880–1895),
  • Ceylon, Penang, Borneo (Brunei, Labuan, Kinabalu) (J. Waterstradt, 1888–1904),
  • Panama and Chiriqui (H. Ribbe, 1878),
  • Amazonas (Dr. Hahnel, 1879–1884, 1885–1887, later there also O. Michael and the Garlepp brothers, the latter also in Peru and Bolivia),
  • Peru (Chanchamayo: F. Thamm, around 1870–1873).

In this way Staudinger succeeded in creating lists of fauna for entire regions, of which only the lepidoptera fauna of Asia Minor (1881), the macrolepidoptera of the Amur region (1892) and the lepidoptera of the Kentei Mountains (1892) are mentioned here.

The taxonomic processing of these yields was Staudinger's actual life's work. Over the years he has described hundreds, if not thousands, of new taxa, especially those from the so-called Macrolepidoptera families. The scientifically important evidence, especially the types of new species, ended up in Staudinger's private collection. An (incomplete) bibliography by Staudinger lists 137 publications on lepidoptera (Anonymous 1901). Numerous taxa are named after Staudinger.

In the zoological literature his name is usually abbreviated with "Stgr."

The company "Staudinger & Bang-Haas" was continued after Staudinger's death by Andreas Bang-Haas. From 1913, his son Otto Bang-Haas (1882–1948) was the sole owner. He ran the company until his death, after which it was dissolved on September 30, 1948.

Remaining collection

Staudinger's private collection with the types of taxa he described went to the Zoological Museum of the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1907, his collection of palaearctic microlepidoptera and caterpillars of palaearctic macrolepidoptera in 1937 . The company collection of Palearctic Lepidoptera was taken over by H. Kotzsch after Otto Bang-Haas' death and came to the Museum für Tierkunde Dresden in 1961 . Today the butterfly collection is an essential part of the Senckenberg Natural History Collection in Dresden.

Works (selection)

  • with MF Wocke: Catalog of the Lepidoptera of Europe and the neighboring countries. Staudinger & Burdach, Dresden 1861.
  • with MF Wocke: Catalog of the lepidoptera of the European fauna area. 2nd Edition. Burdach, Dresden 1871, pp. XVI – XXXVII, 1–200, 347–382, 415–424.
  • Contribution to the lepidopteran fauna of Greece. In: Horae societatis entomologicae rossicae. 7, 1871, pp. 3–304, 3 plates.
  • Lepidoptera fauna of Asia Minor. In: Horae societas entomologicae rossicae. 14, 1878, pp. 129-329, Pl. 1-2, pp. 321-482 (1879), Pl. 3-4. Supplements 16, 1881, pp. 65-135.
  • with E. Schatz (Ed.): Exotic butterflies. Two volumes. Löwensohn, Fürth 1884–1888.
  • Central Asian Lepidoptera. In: Stettiner entomological newspaper. 47, 1886, pp. 193-215, 225-256; 48, 1887, pp. 49-102.
  • The Macrolepidoptera of the Amur region. Part I: Mémoires sur les Lépidoptères. 6, 1892, pp. 83-658, plates 4-14.
  • Lepidoptera of the Kentei Mountains. In: German Entomological Journal Iris. 5, 1892, pp. 300-393, plate 3.
  • High Andean Lepidoptera. In: German Entomological Journal Iris. 7, 1894, pp. 43-100, 2 plates.
  • Lepidoptera of the Apple Mountains. In: German Entomological Journal Iris. 10, 1898, pp. 320-344.
  • with H. Rebel: Catalog of the Lepidoptera of the Palaearctic fauna area. Part I: Famil. Papilionidae - Hepialidae. Friedländer & Son, Berlin 1901.

Biographical sources

  • Anonymous ["S."]: Dr. Otto Staudinger †. In: German entomological journal Iris. 13, 1901, pp. 341-358.
  • Anonymous: The Nestor of German Entomologists, Dr. Otto Staudinger. In: Entomological Yearbooks. 3, 1894, pp. 265-268.
  • J. Draeseke: The company Dr. O. Staudinger & A. Bang-Haas. In: Entomological News. 6, 1962, pp. 49-53.
  • TLF Seebold: Notice nécrologique sur le Dr. Otto Staudinger. In: Annales de la Société entomologique de France. 70, 1901-1902, pp. 6-7.

Web links

Wikisource: Otto Staudinger  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Todtenschau. In: Dresden history sheets . No. 1, 1901, p. 19.
  2. Butterfly collection on www.senckenberg.de
Commons : Otto Staudinger  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files