Richard Bohm

Richard Bohm

Expeditions in Central Africa with the travel routes of Böhm, Reichard and other researchers (map around 1890)

Richard Böhm (born October 1, 1854 in Berlin , † March 27, 1884 in Katapana , Katanga ) was a German zoologist , anatomist and explorer .

Life

Böhm was the son of Ludwig Böhm and Franziska Louise, nee Meyerlinck. He attended schools in Berlin, studied zoology with Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and received his doctorate in 1877. He also attended universities in Berlin and Lausanne . In the years 1878 to 1880 he prepared for a trip to east central Africa , which he set out on April 5, 1880. He was accompanied by Paul Reichard (1854–1938) and Emil Kaiser (1855–1882). The three researchers first went to the Zanzibar region in order to set off from Bagamoyo on July 27, 1880 and finally to reach the east bank of Lake Tanganyika . In the years 1880 to 1884 Böhm and Reichard undertook long hikes on both sides of Lake Tanganyika, u. a. in the southeast of the Upemba lake discovered by Böhm .

Like his companion Kaiser before, Böhm also died during the trip as a result of an attack of malaria .

Honor

Anton Reichenow (1847–1941) and Hermann Schalow (1852–1925) dedicated various bird species to Böhm:

• Böhmspint , Merops boehmi (Reichenow 1882)
• Böhmralle , Sarothrura boehmi (Reichenow 1900)
• Bat Swift , Neafrapus boehmi (Schalow 1882)
• Böhm snapper , Muscicapa boehmi (Reichenow 1884).

Some mammals are also named after him:

• Boehm's bush squirrel , Paraxerus boehmi (Reichenow, 1886)
• Boehm gerbil , Gerbilliscus boehmi (Noack, 1887)
• Boehm's zebra , Equus quagga boehmi Matschie, 1892

Works

Böhm reported on his trip several times in Globus . His correspondence appeared in 1888 under the title From Sansibar to Tanganyika . He was responsible for numerous articles in the Journal of Ornithology from 1882 to 1887.

literature

• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Common Bird Names and the People They Commemorate. Yale University Press (New Haven and London). 2003
• Allen G. Debus (Ed.): World Who's Who in Science. A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present . Marquis-Who's Who (Chicago) XVI + 1855 S. 1968
• Erwin Stresemann:  Böhm, Richard Johann Constantin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 384 ( digitized version ).
• Conrad Weidmann: German men in Africa - Lexicon of the most outstanding German Africa researchers, missionaries, etc. Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1894, p. 15f.