Gustav Tornier

Gustav Tornier ( born May 9, 1859 in Dombrowken, Kulmerland, † April 25, 1938 in Berlin) was a German herpetologist. He was an expert on amphibians and reptiles in the former German East Africa.

Tornier studied at the University of Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1892. Earlier, he worked at the Zoological Museum of the Friedrich -Wilhelms- University of Berlin (later Museum of Natural History ). There he was in the herpetological collection, which he headed from 1895, when the previous manager Paul Matschie took over the mammal collection. In 1902 he became professor of zoology at the University of Berlin. From 1903 he was Head of the library of the museum, was assistant director in 1921 and 1922/23, provisional director. In 1923 he went into retirement.

In 1909 he was embroiled in a debate about the locomotion of Diplodocus, at that time due to the current site donated by Andrew Carnegie Berlin casting, which was placed in the Natural History Museum. Oliver Hay had criticized the reconstruction and said, Diplodocus would have similar moves crocodiles with laterally splayed limbs. Tornier had come to the same conclusion independently of Hay and supported Hays theory. This brought them in 1910 strongly criticized by the Director of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh William Jacob Holland, who had supervised the preparation of the skeleton in Berlin.

1886 to 1890 he published papers on the phylogeny of the elbows and feet of mammals.

He erstbeschrieb and named, among others, several chameleon species.

The sauropod discovered in Tendaguru Tornieria ( Barosaurus ) is named after him.

Writings

• The struggle with food: A contribution to Darwinism, Berlin 1884 archives
• The reptiles and amphibians of East Africa, Reimer, Berlin 1896