Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in

Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Prussia, it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the la ...

– 6 July 1941 in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

) was a German

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

and

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning " reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and r ...

. Reichenow was the son-in-law of

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 183 ...

, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He was an expert on

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s, making a collecting expedition to

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...

in 1872 and 1873, and writing ''Die Vögel Afrikas'' (1900–05). He was also an expert on parrots, describing all species then known in his book ''Vogelbilder aus Fernen Zonen: Abbildungen und Beschreibungen der Papageien'' (illustrated by Gustav Mützel, 1839–1893). He also wrote ''Die Vögel der Bismarckinseln'' (1899). He was editor of the ''

Journal für Ornithologie The ''Journal of Ornithology'' (formerly ''Journal für Ornithologie'') is a scientific journal published by Springer Science+Business Media on behalf of the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft. It was founded by Jean Cabanis in 1853, becoming the ...

'' from 1894 to 1921. A number of birds are named after him, including Reichenow's woodpecker and

Reichenow's firefinch The Chad firefinch or Reichenow's firefinch (''Lagonosticta umbrinodorsalis'') is a small passerine bird belonging to the firefinch genus ''Lagonosticta'' in the estrildid finch family Estrildidae. It is restricted to a small area of Central Afr ...

. His son

Eduard Reichenow Johann Eduard Reichenow (7 July 1883 – 23 March 1960) was a German protozoologist. He was the son of ornithologist Anton Reichenow. Biography Reichenow was born in Berlin. He studied natural sciences in Heidelberg, Berlin and Munich, and ...

was a famous

protozoologist Protozoology is the study of protozoa, the "animal-like" (i.e., motile and heterotrophic) protists. The Protozoa are considered to be a subkingdom of Protista. They are free-living organisms that are found in almost every habitat. All humans have pr ...

. Reichenow is known for his classification of birds into six groups, described as "shortwings, swimmers, stiltbirds, skinbills, yoketoes, and treebirds". This system was not adopted by any other ornithologists, but is used in the Dewey Decimal System. Reichenow also worked in the scientific field of herpetology. He is credited with describing a new

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

and two new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

of frogs, and two new species of

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia al ...

s. He is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. S ...

, '' Lacertaspis reichenowi''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Reichenow", pp. 218-219).

References

External links

The Birds: Handbook of Systematic Ornithology. Volume 1

The Birds: Handbook of Systematic Ornithology. Volume 2

The Birds of German-East-Africa (1894)

''Die Vögel Afrikas''. Volume 1Volume 2Volume 3Atlas

''Conspectus Psittacorum''
1847 births 1941 deaths German ornithologists People from Charlottenburg Journal of Ornithology editors {{ornithologist-stub

References

Further reading

External links