Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
– 5 March 1922,
Buitenzorg
Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.Java Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens. He is best known for writing the first formal description of the
Komodo dragon
The Komodo dragon (''Varanus komodoensis''), also known as the Komodo monitor, is a member of the monitor lizard family Varanidae that is endemic to the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, and Gili Motang. It is the largest extant ...
(''Varanus komodoensis'') in 1912.
Family
Ouwens was the child of Pieter Anthonis Ouwens, accountant in Amsterdam, and Caroline Reiniera Nagels. He studied at the Royal Military Academy in Breda from 1867. In 1871, he became lieutenant at the Infantry in the Dutch East Indies and by 1883 he had been promoted to captain. In January 1879 he married Johanna Vosmaer at Banda Aceh. They divorced a month after the birth of their only child in 1882 in
Salatiga
Salatiga ( jv, ꦯꦭꦠꦶꦒ) is a city in Central Java province, Indonesia. It covers an area of and had a population of 192,322 at the 2020 Census. Located between the cities of Semarang and Surakarta, and administratively an independent c ...
and Ouwens remarried Jeanne Dikkers in December 1883 in
Purworejo
Purworejo is a regency ( id, kabupaten) in the southern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. It covers an area of 1,034.82 km2 and had a population of 695,427 at the 2010 Census and 769,880 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate ...
He eventually became curator of the Zoological Museum in Buitenzorg (now Bogor). As such he received a photo and a skin of a Komodo dragon from Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek who had been the first Westerner to observe the lizards and had been told that they could reach 6 to 7 meters. Ouwens dispatched a collector to Komodo who returned to Java with two adults and a young specimen.Varanus komodoensis . Mampam.com (2007-08-24). Retrieved on 2013-04-30. Ouwens named the species ''Varanus komodoensis'' in a publication of 1912. Ouwens became Officer of the
Order of Orange-Nassau
The Order of Orange-Nassau ( nl, Orde van Oranje-Nassau, links=no) is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands.
The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has ...