Otto Fabricius (6 March 174420 May 1822) was a Danish

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

, naturalist,

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, and

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

of Greenland.

Biography

Otto Fabricius was born in

Rudkøbing Rudkøbing is a town in Denmark, on the western coast of the island of Langeland. It is the seat of Langeland Municipality, in the Southern Denmark Region. The town is located southeast of Svendborg and is connected to Siø through the Siø ...

on the island of

Langeland Langeland (, ) is a Danish island located between the Great Belt and Bay of Kiel. The island measures 285 km2 (c. 110 square miles) and, as of 1 January 2018, has a population of 12,446.

, Denmark, where his father was a rector. In his youth, he was educated largely at home by tutors. In 1762, he was matriculated at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

. In 1765, he was admitted to the Greenland Mission Seminary (''Seminarium Groenlandicum''), where he attended classes taught by Poul Egede. In 1768 he graduated with a degree in divinity. He was sent as a missionary to the southwestern coast of

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland ...

from 1768 to 1773. During this period, he made enormous amounts of observations and collections. His laboratory was an Inuit house made of turf. His only artificial light was an oil lamp. He had a few magnifying glasses and only one book was in his library, Linnaei

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial ...

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

. Nevertheless, he made enough zoological observation to be able to publish ''Fauna Groenlandica'' (1780), which was written in Latin, after his return to

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

. Here, he described 473 animal species, primarily marine, 130 of which were proposed as new to science. Detailed descriptions are given, including information on

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

and behaviour, the vernacular

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territorie ...

name, what use the Inuit make of the animal and not least how they caught or trapped it. In 1774, he was appointed rector at

Drangedal Drangedal is a municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Prestestranda. The municipality of Drangedal was establis ...

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

, Norway where he stayed until 1779 while he completed work for a

Greenlandic language Greenlandic ( kl, kalaallisut, link=no ; da, grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the m ...

dictionary which was published in 1804. In 1789, he succeeded Poul Egede to become a lecturer in the Greenland Mission Seminary. In 1818, he was appointed an Honorary Bishop of the

Church of Denmark The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church, sometimes called the Church of Denmark ( da, Folkekirken, literally: "The People's Church" or unofficially da, Den danske folkekirke, literally: "The Danish People's Church"; kl, ...

and awarded a Doctorate of Divinity.

Fauna Groenlandica

*''Fauna Groenlandica'' by Othonis Fabricii (1780) was published in Latin by Göttingen Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hafniae; Lipsiae Rothe. *Sections on mammals and birds translated from Latin into Danish by O. Helms (1929): ''Otto Fabricius, Fauna Groenlandica, Pattedyr og Fugle, Det Grønlandske Selskabs Skrifter'' ''Fauna groenlandica. Pattedyr og Fugle. Oversat og forsynet med Indledning og Kommentarer af O. Helms'' (Aabenhus Aarhus Antikvariat)
/ref> *The life of Bishop Otto Fabricius is reviewed and the section on seals translated and commented on by Finn O. Kapel (2005): ''Otto Fabricius and the seals of Greenland''. MoG Bioscience.

References

Other sources

*Jensen, A.S. (1932) Otto Fabricius, pp. 72–75 in: Meisen, V. ''Prominent Danish Scientists through the Ages'' (Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard) *Kapel, Finn O. (2005) ''Otto Fabricius and the seals of Greenland'' (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fabricius, Otto 1744 births 1822 deaths 18th-century Danish people Danish zoologists Danish biologists Danish Lutheran missionaries Greenlandic Lutheran clergy Lutheran missionaries in Greenland Linguists of Eskaleut languages People from Langeland Municipality Missionary linguists 18th-century Danish scientists