Friedrich Von Huene
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Baron Friedrich Richard von Hoyningen-Huene (22 March 1875 – 4 April 1969) was a German nobleman
paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...
who described a large number of
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
s, more than anyone else in 20th-century
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. He studied a range of Permo-Carboniferous
tetrapods A tetrapod (; from Ancient Greek τετρα- ''(tetra-)'' 'four' and πούς ''(poús)'' 'foot') is any four- limbed vertebrate animal of the clade Tetrapoda (). Tetrapods include all extant and extinct amphibians and amniotes, with the lat ...
. He worked at the collections of the institute and museum for geology and paleontology at the
University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...
.


Biography

Von Huene was born in
Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...
,
Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg ( ) was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Electorate of Württemberg, which existed from 1803 to 1806. Geogr ...
and came from a noble Baltic German family. He took this Baltic identity to heart and would later call his home on Zeppelinstraße (now Payerstraße) as ''Villa Baltica''. His father Johannes von Hoyningen called Huene was a Lutheran minister who had studied theology at Göttingen, Tübingen and Dorpat. His mother Alexandra Baronesse Stackelberg came from an Estonian noble family. The junior Huene was also brought up with deeply religious beliefs. He grew up in Switzerland as his father taught at Basel. He also visited Latvia as a child and even as a young boy he collected fossils. He studied at a Swiss Gymnasium and in 1895 his
abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
was on Jura fossils. He then went to the
University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...
to study theology and natural sciences. He later went to Tübingen to study paleontology and geology under Ernst von Koken. He went to St Petersuburg in 1897 for the 6th International Geological Congress. On a visit to Britain in 1901 he met many British paleontologists and visited the main museums. He thought it was more useful to be involved in geological stratigraphy and therefore decided that he would study brachiopods for his doctoral dissertation which he received in 1898. After this he was persuaded by Koken to study Triassic dinosaurs and his habilitation in 1902 was a review of the Triassic reptiles. In 1904 he married Theodora Lawton and they had five daughters including the paleontologist Erika von Huene. Von Huene was a poor teacher and was not keen on writing textbooks. He was however always interested in finding ways of finding science fit into creationist frameworks. He considered phylogenetics to be a quest to understand the plan of God. In 1911 he travelled to the United States. When World War I broke out he volunteered at first and in 1915 he became a cavalry officer. Von Huene did not receive academic positions and he even tried to apply to Stanford. In 1925, however, he received an offer from the University of Cordoba in Argentina but he turned it down. The University of Tübingen gave him a conservator position and he took it up, donating his personal collections to the museum there. During the Nazi era Von Huene kept a low profile and continue to publish. He assisted some of his Jewish colleagues like Tilly Edinger (1897-1967) to find work outside Germany with references. In 1945 Von Huene was elected as an honorary professor and in 1946 he became acting director of the institute when Edwin Hennig was removed for his Nazi activities. Huene described more than 35 individuals of '' Plateosaurus'' from the famous Trossingen quarry, the early proto-dinosaur '' Saltopus'' in 1910, '' Proceratosaurus'' in 1926, the giant '' Antarctosaurus'' in 1929, and numerous other dinosaurs and
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
ized animals like
pterosaur Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earli ...
s. He also was the first to name several higher
taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...
, including Prosauropoda and Sauropodomorpha. In 1941 Huene discovered a piece of petrified wood filled with the burrows of wood-boring bivalves. He misidentified the petrified wood as the lower jaw of a
titanosaur Titanosaurs (or titanosaurians; members of the group Titanosauria) were a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, including genera from all seven continents. The titanosaurs were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods, with taxa still thr ...
and subsequently named the specimen Succinodon. His error was discovered and corrected in 1981 by two Polish paleontologists. He visited the
Geopark A geopark is a protected area with internationally significant geology within which Sustainability, sustainable development is sought and which includes tourism, conservation, education and research concerning not just geology but other relevant s ...
of Paleorrota in 1928, and there collected the '' Prestosuchus chiniquensis'' in 1938. He also studied several Permo-Carboniferous and Triassic limbed vertebrates, including members of several large clades, such as
Temnospondyli Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') or temnospondyls is a diverse ancient order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished ...
,
Synapsida Synapsida is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant rep ...
, and
Sauropsida Sauropsida (Greek language, Greek for "lizard faces") is a clade of amniotes, broadly equivalent to the Class (biology), class Reptile, Reptilia, though typically used in a broader sense to also include extinct stem-group relatives of modern repti ...
. In his work on mesosaurs, Huene indicated that a lower temporal fenestra was present (as in synapsids), an interpretation later rejected by many subsequent workers, but more recently upheld. A new species of basal sauropodomorph, '' Lufengosaurus huenei'', was named after von Huene in 1941. '' Liassaurus huenei'', an early
carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly mu ...
theropod Theropoda (; from ancient Greek , (''therion'') "wild beast"; , (''pous, podos'') "foot"">wiktionary:ποδός"> (''pous, podos'') "foot" is one of the three major groups (clades) of dinosaurs, alongside Ornithischia and Sauropodom ...
, was named for him in 1995, though this name is invalid.


See also

* :Taxa named by Friedrich von Huene


References


Other sources

* length: 60 pages; Guide to the fossil finds in Rio Grande do Sul, and especially in the Santa Maria area. * length: 582 pages {{DEFAULTSORT:Huene, Friedrich Von German paleontologists 1875 births 1969 deaths People from Tübingen People from the Kingdom of Württemberg University of Tübingen alumni Academic staff of the University of Tübingen Friedrich