Gustav Kramer (11 March 1910 – 19 April 1959) was a German

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and

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 ...

who specialised in

allometry Allometry (Ancient Greek "other", "measurement") is the study of the relationship of body size to shape, anatomy, physiology and behaviour, first outlined by Otto Snell in 1892, by D'Arcy Thompson in 1917 in ''On Growth and Form'' and by Jul ...

. He described ''

Xenopus laevis The African clawed frog (''Xenopus laevis''), also known as simply xenopus, African clawed toad, African claw-toed frog or the ''platanna'') is a species of African aquatic frog of the family Pipidae. Its name is derived from the short black ...

'', the African clawed frog, for the first time in his

doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

. Near the end of the 1940s, he discovered that birds can use the sun as a compass.

Career

In 1933 Kramer did a study on ''Xenopus laevis'' in Berlin. At the

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science () was a German scientific institution established in the German Empire in 1911. Its functions were taken over by the Max Planck Society. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organi ...

, under Ludolf von Krehl, he worked on the metabolism of

warm-blooded Warm-blooded is a term referring to animal species whose bodies maintain a temperature higher than that of their environment. In particular, homeothermic species (including birds and mammals) maintain a stable body temperature by regulating ...

animals. After that, he worked as an assistant at German-Italian Institute of Marine Biology in

Rovinj Rovinj (; Venetian and ; Istriot: or ; ; ) is a city in west Croatia situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 14,294 (2011). Located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, it is a popular tourist resort and beach destin ...

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. In 1941, he relocated to

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

to conduct a study on lizards, especially the Adriatic lizard. He studied the comparative morphological and genetic differences between mainland and island forms to draw conclusions about the lizard's speciation. In 1948 Kramer headed a department of the

Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

for

Marine Biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsha ...

. There he conducted research on how birds are able to orient themselves over long distances. He constructed an apparatus that allowed him to test how animals react to the position of the sun by tricking the animals into thinking the sun was in a different position. With this experiment, he demonstrated that the direction of flight is dependent on the position of the sun in the sky. Because this ability requires an inner clock to measure the time of day, Kramer sought cooperation with

Jürgen Aschoff Jürgen Walther Ludwig Aschoff (January 25, 1913 – October 12, 1998) was a German physician, biologist and behavioral physiologist. Together with Erwin Bünning and Colin Pittendrigh, he is considered to be a co-founder of the field of chronobi ...

. From 1 April 1958, Kramer worked with the emerging Aschoff Max Planck near Tübingen. He coined the word ''Zugunruhe'', meaning migratory restlessness.

Death

On 19 April 1959, while trying to remove young

rock pigeon The rock dove (''Columba livia''), also sometimes known as "rock pigeon" or "common pigeon", is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). In common usage, it is often simply referred to as the "pigeon", although the rock dov ...

s from their nests in the mountains of

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, he fell and was killed instantly. His two sons secured his body from the high-running mountain river Raganello. The obituary written by Konrad Lorenz in the Journal of Ornithology stated: "his authorized worldwide fame as the initiator of experimental analytical orientation research" should not be forgotten.

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von ...

: ''Gustav Kramer †''. Journal für Ornithologie, Band 100, 1959, S. 265–268

Publications

* ''Untersuchungen über die Sinnesleistungen und das Orientierungsverhalten von Xenopus laevis Daud.'' Zool. Jahrb., Bd. 52, S. 629–676, Jena: Fischer 1933; zugl. Berlin, Phil. Diss. * ''Experiments on bird orientation.'' Ibis 94: 265-285 (1952)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Gustav 1910 births 1959 deaths German ornithologists 20th-century German zoologists Deaths from falls Accidental deaths in Italy