Willy Wolterstorff

Willy Georg Wolterstorff (born June 16, 1864 in Calbe ; † January 21, 1943 in Magdeburg ) was a German zoologist , geologist , paleontologist , conservator and herpetologist .

Life

Wolterstorff was born as the son of the mayor of Calber, Wilhelm Wolterstorff. As a child in 1871 at the age of seven, he lost his hearing and initially his ability to speak due to an infectious disease . It was possible to regain normal language skills. Wolterstorff also learned lip reading . Wolterstorff, who later also suffered from myopia , had little contact with other children and adolescents due to his disabilities. As a lonely child, he sought balance in nature, with animals and plants, caught and kept amphibians, and collected beetles, snail shells and animal skulls. In 1872 his father became head of the Magdeburg City Library and a year later also City School Councilor.

Wolterstorff soon began to catalog and expand his collections according to scientific criteria. He was not only a pure collector, but also an extremely attentive observer of nature. He increasingly focused his gaze on the newts and salamanders . Wolterstorff invented the so-called “ Tradescantia glass ”, a simple and problem-free method of keeping newts, the prerequisite for the successful care and breeding of these amphibians as well as the later foundation stone for his herpetological research.

Wolterstorff enjoyed an education through private lessons, which was followed by an apprenticeship as a bookbinder . In 1883 he obtained the journeyman's certificate . From 1884 he studied geology in Halle (Saale) with Karl von Fritsch . At the same time he trained as a conservator. Since he was unable to complete the Abitur due to his disabilities, he initially only studied as a guest auditor and later, with special permission from the Prussian Minister of Culture, as a regular student.

After completing his studies, Wolterstorff received a position as assistant to Konrad Oebbeke at the Mineralogical-Geological Institute in Erlangen in 1889 . Here he received his doctorate in 1898 on the subject of the sub-carbon of Magdeburg-Neustadt and its fauna . In 1890 Wolterstorff took on a position as a private assistant to the geologist Baron von Reinach , before becoming a conservator at the Museum of Natural History and Prehistory in Magdeburg on April 1, 1891 .

The Magdeburg Museum of Natural History, for many years W. Wolterstoff's most important place of work

Wolterstorff dealt with paleontological work that dealt with outcrops of the Magdeburg Kulm and Tertiary .

According to his inclinations, he then worked primarily on the research of lower vertebrates, especially the Salamandridae , whose systematics, behavior and reproduction he researched. The museum became a center for newt research . The most important part of his work was undoubtedly the huge collection of tailed amphibians was that grown to 12,000 glasses with 7,159 catalog numbers until his 75th birthday in 1939 and one of the largest collections of its kind.

In 1900 Wolterstorff became curator of this museum under August Mertens . He carried out this task until his retirement in 1929. He also continued to work in the museum as a retiree, and from 1941 he set up an archive for the collection he had assembled. He wrote a total of 280 publications, mostly with a herpetological focus, until he died on January 21, 1943 at the age of 79.

From 1909 Wolterstorff was also engaged as editor of the Blätter für Aquarien- und Terrariumkunde . In 1918 he founded the Association of Terrarium Friends Salamanders .

During attacks by British air units, the Magdeburg Natural History Museum was completely destroyed in 1945, and with it the entire collection of specimens and the archive that Wolterstorff had built up. His paleontological collections are now in the Museum für Naturkunde Magdeburg .

Honors

On October 29, 1902 ( registration number 3154 ) he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . During his lifetime he was an honorary member of various domestic and foreign specialist societies and received several scientific and municipal awards, such as the Otto von Guericke plaque from the city of Magdeburg. Some recent and extinct animal species were named after him. The city of Magdeburg named a street in his honor as Willy-Wolterstorff-Straße . Animal species such as the killifish Cynolebias wolterstorffi and the presumably extinct Chinese newt Cynops wolterstorffi are named after Wolterstorff , as well as a genus of African toads with 3 species ( Wolterstorffina ).

On January 21, 2019, a plaque in honor of Wolterstorff was unveiled at Wolterstorff's former place of work, the former building of the Natural History Museum in Magdeburg.

Fonts

• About fossil frogs, especially the genus Palaeobatrachus , 2 parts, 1886, 1887
• Our reptiles and amphibians , 1888
• The reptiles and amphibians of the north-west German mountainous region , 1893
• About the marine fauna of the Magdeburg Grauwacke . In: Festschrift to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the foundation day of the Natural Science Association in Magdeburg, A. & R. Faber, Magdeburg 1894, Theil II, pp. 17–24 ( archive )
• About the discovery of the lower oligocene in Magdeburg-Sudenburg . In: Festschrift to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the foundation day of the Natural Science Association in Magdeburg, A. & R. Faber, Magdeburg 1894, Theil II, pp. 25–39 ( archive )
• The lower carbon of Magdeburg-Neustadt and its fauna , 1898
• The tritons of the subgenus Euproctus Gené and their prison life, together with an overview of the Urodeles of the southwestern Palearctic region , 1902

literature

• Ingrid Böttcher: Wolterstorff, Willy. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 .
• Alfred Bogen: Dr. Willy Wolterstorff. Life and work. (with portrait photo, congratulations from the Lord Mayor and with a list edited by Alfred Bogen and Hans Scharlinski. Writings written by Dr. Willy Wolterstorff [260 titles from 1886–1938]; in: Festschrift, published on the 75th birthday of the retired curator. phil. Willy Wolterstorff on June 16, 1939 = treatises and reports from the Museum of Natural History and Prehistory and the Natural Science Association in Magdeburg , Volume VII, Issue 1, edited by Alfred Bogen, Magdeburg 1939, pp. 7-30)
• Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Willy Wolterstorff in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Member entry of Wilhelm Wolterstorff (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 24, 2015.