Carl Eduard Hellmayr (29 January 1878 – 24 February 1944) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

Biography

Hellmayr was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and studied at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, although he did not complete his degree. After his studies he worked in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Tring (England), and Chicago. He spent the years 1905–1908 studying Baron Rothschild's private collection of natural history specimens at Tring, near London. There he received guidance from the German ornithologist

Ernst Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrat ...

. In 1908, Hellmayr was appointed Curator of the Bird Department at the Bavarian State Museum, which he had helped organize in 1903 and where he became a specialist in Neotropical birds, studying

Johann Baptist von Spix Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix (9 February 1781 – 13 March 1826) was a German natural history, biologist. From his expedition to Brazil, he brought to Germany a large variety of specimens of plants, insects, mammals, birds, amphibians and fish. ...

's collection of Brazilian birds. In 1922, he was made Curator in Zoology at the

Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educationa ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. He stayed there until 1931. His books included 13 of the 15 volumes of the ''Catalogue of Birds of the Americas'' (1918–1949), a work initiated by Hellmayr's predecessor, Charles B. Cory. With Henry Boardman Conover he published ''The Birds of Chile''. In 1931, Hellmayr went back to Vienna. After the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, he was arrested and briefly jailed for reasons that are not fully known but probably related to his unsympathetic views toward the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

(Hellmayr did not make political statements in public, but his interest – as an amateur

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

– in the French Revolution shows that he was more than casually interested in such topics). After his release he emigrated with his wife to Switzerland. Following a long period of declining health, he died in 1944 in

Orselina Orselina is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Locarno (district), Locarno in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Ticino in Switzerland. History Orselina is first mentioned in 1182 as ''Concilio Meziano''. In 1323 ...

, near Locarno. Historian François Vuilleumier writes that "Hellmayr's pivotal role was first and foremost to bring order to henomenclatural chaos" of his day that had resulted in erroneous citations and hindered analysis of species and genera.

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LSU Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hellmayr, Carl Eduard 1878 births 1944 deaths Austrian ornithologists Scientists from Vienna Austrian expatriates in the United States Austrian emigrants to Switzerland

Biography

References

Further reading

External links