Ernst Vanhöffen
Ernst Vanhoffen (* November 15, 1858 in Wehlau, East Prussia, † June 14, 1918 in Legitten, East Prussia ) was a German zoologist and explorer.
Life
Ernst Vanhoffen was born as the second son of a grain merchant in Wehlau in East Prussia. After visiting the Löbenichtschen grammar school he studied from 1878 Science at the Albertus University of Königsberg. In 1879 he became a member of the Corps Normannia Königsberg. Three times he was awarded Consenior. In 1881 he moved for a semester at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin. He then served as a one-year volunteer. Having returned to Königsberg, he turned under the influence of Richard von Hertwig and Carl Chun zoology, but remained all his life also in geology and botany interested.
In 1886 he passed his state examination as a senior teacher and was on October 1 assistant at the Zoological Institute. Two years later he received a doctorate in phil .. Equipped with a scholarship from the Prussian Ministry of Culture, he went in the winter 1889-1890 at the Zoological Station of Naples, to continue his studies on jellyfish. After his return Victor Hensen appointed him editor of the screen jellyfish plankton expedition of 1889. Vanhoffen moved to at the Zoological Institute, Christian- Albrechts- University of Kiel.
In 1892 he was offered the opportunity to participate even in a larger expedition. The Geographical Society led under the direction of Erich Drygalski an expedition to West Greenland. A year earlier, a preparatory expedition had taken place. The main expedition should also accompany a biologist. On May 1, 1892 Vanhoffen went to Copenhagen together with the other participants on board the Danish sailing ship Peru, which led researchers to Uummannaq. Here at 71 ° wintered the expedition and returned home only on October 14, 1893.
Vanhoffen remained at the University of Kiel, Institute of Zoology whose material was well equipped by the good connections Hensen and Karl Brandt as German Seefischereiverein. When Friedrich Dahl 1896 to 1897 undertook a journey in the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanhoffen could occupy as long as its assistant at the Institute. He then went for half a year at the Zoological Museum in Berlin. In 1896 he was finally assistant in Kiel and habilitated on May 18 at the local university.
When the German deep-sea expedition on 31 July 1898 the steamship Valdivia left the port of Hamburg, Vanhoffen was at the request of the expedition leader Carl Chun on board. The nine -month journey led by the Atlantic Ocean to in Antarctic waters and from there into the Indian Ocean. When processing the abundant yield of deep-sea organisms Vanhoffen took over the medusae.
Back in Kiel, he began his teaching career as a lecturer at the university. On March 23, 1901 his appeal was made professor.
Drygalski developed by the Greenland expedition soon to plan an expedition to Antarctica, which he shared with his friend Vanhoffen early. Already on the Geographers in April 1895 in Bremen both represented the importance of such an undertaking in lectures, Drygalski from geographical, Vanhoffen from the biological point of view. 1899 the deployment of South Polar Expedition for the year 1901 was decided. In the summer of 1900 Vanhoffen made two trips to Denmark and Norway to - consult Fridtjof Nansen - to order equipment for the expedition. On August 11, 1901, the research vessel Gauss Kiel left in the direction of Kerguelen. Vanhoffen was the only biologist on board. He had a rich field of activity during the next 27 months. About the fauna of Antarctica was at this time, apart from birds and mammals, little is known. Of the twenty volumes of scientific results of the expedition treat thirteen exclusively biological topics. In the seven volumes to zoology, which still appeared in his lifetime Vanhöffens, 2800 species have been described, including over 1,000 new. He edited the jellyfish, the isopods and the hydraulic Idea, an obsolete order of cnidarians.
1906 convened August Brauer, the new director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin, Vanhoffen as curator. This then in charge of the cancers that millipedes and the coelenterates, also the plankton collection and the collection of basic samples. After Brewer 's death, he took over in 1917 the publication of the scientific results of the Valdivia expedition and the Office of the Secretary of the German Zoological Society.
He died at age 60 during his summer vacation in East Prussia from pneumonia.
Writings (selection )
- Studies on semaeostome and rhizostome medusae. Dissertation, Königsberg 1888 ( = Bibliotheca zoologica 1889, Issue 3 )
- The Acalephen the Plankton Expedition. ( = Victor Hensen (Eds. ): Results Plankton Expedition, Volume 2, Part 1), 1902.
- The fauna and flora of Greenland. ( = Erich von Drygalski (ed.): Greenland Expedition of the Geographical Society of Berlin 1891-1893, Volume 2, Part 1), cooling, Berlin 1897.
- The acraspeden medusae. ( = Carl Chun (eds. ): Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer " Valdivia " 1898-1899, Volume 3, Part 1 ), Fischer, Jena, 1902, pp. 1-52
- The craspedoten medusae. I. Trachymedusen. ( = Carl Chun (eds. ): Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer " Valdivia " 1898-1899, Volume 3, Part 1 ), Fischer, Jena, 1902, pp. 53-86
- The isopods of the German South Polar Expedition 1901-1903. ( = Erich von Drygalski (ed.): German South Polar Expedition 1901-1903, Vol 15), Reimer, Berlin 1914