Anton Dohrn

Anton Dohrn ( born December 29, 1840 in Stettin, † September 26, 1909 in Munich, Felix Anton Dohrn full name ) was a zoologist and one of the first explorers of the phylogeny.

Life

Dohrn was the son of Adelheid and Carl August Dohrn. He studied at the universities of Königsberg, Bonn and Jena with Rudolf Virchow, Ernst Haeckel and Carl Gegenbaur the fields of medicine and zoology. In 1868 he qualified as a professor on the subject of studies on the embryology of arthropods in Jena, where he remained a lecturer in Zoology the following two years. Among his students Hermon Carey Bumpus (1862-1943), William Morton Wheeler and Charles Otis Whitman ( 1842-1910 ). He urgently dealt under the influence of Darwinism with the phylogeny of arthropods on the basis of embryological and comparative anatomical data. In his findings he proposed building the first to propose the origin of vertebrates from marigold worm-like ancestors. Anton Dohrn also described the principle of the change in function.

Anton Dohrn is considered the founder of the first modern research institution. In 1870, he began with the establishment of the Zoological Station of Naples, which should serve to explore the marine life. To this end, he recruited a public and private funds. His supporters and sponsors were Charles Darwin, Karl Ernst von Baer, ​​Thomas Henry Huxley, Emil Du Bois- Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Virchow and many others. In 1872, he made the station accessible to the public. Dohrn let the jobs in the station, this could be researched living material on site. In addition, appropriate instruments and Betreuendes staff were present, which is why the offer of scientists has been used to a great extent. So the station could quickly turn into a meeting of international standing, exchanging their knowledge of the scientists as well as artists from different nations. As a periodical of the annual report of the Zoological Station in Naples appeared.

By 1909, Dohrn remained director, after his son Reinhard Dohrn the management of the Institute, which exists today as Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. Other sons of Anton Dohrn were Wolf Dohrn and Harald Dohrn, the father of Christoph Probst.

Honors and Memberships

The German fisheries research vessel Anton Dohrn was named after him. Likewise, in 1955, discovered by the Anton Dohrn between Iceland and East Greenland Anton- Dohrn - Bank are in the Irminger Sea and the deep sea knoll also discovered by the Anton Dohrn ( Guyot ) Anton Dohrn Seamount (also called Anton- Dohrn - tip ) in the Rockall Trough west of the Hebrides named after him.

In 1882 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina.

Works (selection)

• The origin of vertebrates and the principle of Function change. Genealogical sketches, Leipzig 1875
• The Pantopoda of the Gulf of Naples and adjacent marine sections, Leipzig 1881
• Studies on the prehistory of the vertebrate body, Leipzig 1881-1886

Papers (selection)

• The current state of zoology and the establishment of zoological stations ( 1872), reprint in the natural sciences, May 7, 1926 Volume 14, Issue 19, pp. 412-424, with an epilogue by Reinhard Dohrn, first in: Prussian Yearbooks, Volume 30, 1872.