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

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who 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.Thoma ...

, naturalist,

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

, and

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

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 Region of Southern Denmark, Southern Denmark Region. The town is located southeast of Svendborg and is connected t ...

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 (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

. 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 is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

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 Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

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

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. 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, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...

and behaviour, the vernacular

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

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 Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Prestestranda. Other villages in Drangedal include Bø i Tørdal, ...

Telemark Telemark () is a Counties of Norway, county and a current electoral district in Norway. Telemark borders the counties of Vestfold, Buskerud, Vestland, Rogaland and Agder. In 2020, Telemark merged with the county of Vestfold to form the county o ...

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

Greenlandic language Greenlandic, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Kalaallisut (, ), is an Inuit languages, Inuit language belonging to the Eskaleut languages#Internal classification, Eskimoan branch of the Eskaleut languages, Eskaleut language family. ...

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 ( , or unofficially ; ), sometimes called the Church of Denmark, is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The supreme secular authority of the church is composed of ...

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
Scan
*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'' *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