Grigorii Ivanovich Fischer von Waldheim: In Commemoration of 250th Anniversary of His Birthday

This paper commemorates the 250th anniversary of birth of Grigorii Ivanovich Fischer von Waldheim, a German naturalist who came to Moscow in 1804 at the invitation of the trustee of Moscow University M. N. Muravyov to take the chair in natural history and the post of director of the University Museum of Natural History. The paper analyzes the historiography on Fischer von Waldheim and recounts the circumstances of his invitation to Russia. Special attention is given to his fifty-year-long work in Russia and his still underestimated contributions to the development and institutionalization of natural sciences, and the establishment of natural history education at Moscow University and Moscow Medico-Surgical Academy.

Lothar Becker: a German naturalist in Victoria, 1849–52, 1855–65

Warning Readers of this article are warned that it may contain terms, descriptions and opinions that are culturally sensitive and/or offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Lothar Becker (1825–1901?), an unpretentious Silesian naturalist, twice visited the colony of Victoria and published rich and original observations on its natural history and Indigenous people on his return to Germany. On his first visit, 1849 to 1852, Becker recorded his encounter with Black Thursday, a devastating bushfire, its aftermath, and the, by then, still relatively uncleared landscape. He also related his experiences living for a time with an Indigenous family in the Omeo district. After adding to his store of natural history observations on a second visit, 1855 to 1865, Becker tried to make money from writing articles on diverse Australian topics such as ant nests, the sequence and timing of flowering, the distribution of weeds, the natural history of fungi and the world history of tobacco, in all but the latter characterised by a remarkable proto-ecological approach. Becker’s publications have been overlooked by subsequent scientific researchers, in part because he wrote for the popular press, and because his language was German. The life and work of Lothar Becker is introduced here for the first time, and translations provided of six of his articles on Victorian natural history, botany, mycology, horticulture, and anthropology. Reflections on Becker’s contribution to anthropology and to mycology are published in two associated articles by Howes, and May and Darragh.

After Nature (1988)

This section considers Sebald’s narrative prose poem and literary debut, After Nature. The first section of the poem is a fragmented literary portrait of German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller; the second a profile of Matthias Grünewald, the reclusive German painter. Schütte encourages the reader to see all three sections as self-portraits of the author, the latter being Sebald’s account of his self-exile from Germany to England. He argues all three pilgrimages reflect Sebald’s interest in exile, melancholia, and man’s increasingly troubled relationship with nature.

First Report of the Earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus (Müller, 1857) from Punjab, India

The earthwormPontoscolex corethrurus(Müller, 1857) is reported for the first time from Punjab, India. This species was first described by German naturalist Fritz Müller in 1857 from Santa Catarina state of Brazil. It is commonly found in gardens, cropland and fallowlands. It tolerates wide range of climatic and edaphic factors due to its endogeic ecological category.P. corethrurushas high efficiency for organic matter assimilation and has ability to live in new habitat due to which it can survive even in very poor soil. The life cycle of this species is well documented and this species has economic importance due to its use in waste management.

Hermann Karsten (1817–1908): a German naturalist in the Neotropics and the significance of his paleovertebrate collection

During the mid-19th century, the German naturalist Hermann Karsten conducted a 12-year exploration (1844–1856) in the territories of Ecuador, New Granada (now Colombia) and Venezuela, allowing him to produce important botanic, geographic and geologic descriptions with valuable information that permits us to refer to him as a pioneer in many of these topics. With his return to Europe, abundant geological, paleontological and living plant specimens were brought and housed in European museums and botanical gardens. The Karsten collection included an important invertebrate collection from the Cretaceous of the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, which was studied and published by himself and the renowned German paleontologist Leopold von Buch, filling a large void in the knowledge about ancients faunas. H. Karsten's vertebrate collection was never illustrated or subjected to a detailed taxonomic study, being mentioned in scientific publications in a repetitive manner and with incorrect taxonomic and provenance information. More than 160 years after they were collected, we carried out a taxonomic revision of all H. Karsten's vertebrate specimens from Colombia and Venezuela, which are housed in the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. These specimens are represented by cranial and postcranial elements of megafauna, which include Megatheriidae, Mylodontidae and Glyptodontidae (Xenarthra), Toxodontidae (Notoungulata), Gomphotheriidae (Proboscidea), and many other indeterminate mammal remains. This revision is intended to clarify the taxonomy and provenance of the specimens, emphasizing the historical importance of this fossil collection and its significance for the paleontology of the region.

Invisible Gorillas

This chapter explains how symbols, by providing a blank background on which we may contemplate unadulterated meaning, help us see and distinguish what is essential. It first considers the claim advanced by the German naturalist Gotthilf von Schubert in the nineteenth century that we dream in a traumbildsprache (“dream visual language”), “a higher kind of algebra,” not in a verbal language. It then discusses the study of dreams by Calvin Hall and Vernon Nordby; Christopher Chabris's and Daniel Simons's “Invisible Gorilla” experiment; and experiments undertaken by Stanislas Dehaene to investigate differences in brain activity between contemplations of numbers and words. It also revisits the study done by Anthony Jansen, Kim Marriott, and Greg Yelland of Monash University to find out how experienced users of mathematics comprehend algebraic expressions. Finally, it suggests how particular notational configurations may help us recognize structure in mathematical expressions and process equations.

Juan Cristóbal Gundlach's contributions to the knowledge of Puerto Rican birds and his influence on the development of natural history in Puerto Rico

The German naturalist, Juan Cristóbal Gundlach (1810–1896), resided in Cuba for the last 57 years of his life, except for two expeditions to Puerto Rico in 1873 and 1875–1876, when he explored the southwestern, western, and northeastern regions. Gundlach made representative collections of the island's fauna, which formed the nucleus of the first natural history museum in Puerto Rico. He substantially increased the number of species known from the island, and was the first naturalist to make meticulous observations and produce detailed reports of the island's natural history. Gundlach greatly influenced other naturalists in the island, so that a period of concerted advancement in knowledge of natural history occurred in the 1870s. That development coincided with the establishment of the first higher education institutions in the island, including the first natural history museum. The natural history museums eventually closed, and only a few of their specimens were passed to other institutions, including foreign museums. None of Gundlach's and few of his contemporaries’ specimens have survived in Puerto Rico.