August Brauer

August Bernhard Brauer ( born April 3, 1863 in Oldenburg, † September 10, 1917 in Berlin) was a German zoologist and 1906-1917 Director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin.

Life

August Brauer was born as the youngest of nine children of Oldenburg businessman Theodor Brauer and his wife Marianne. He attended the gymnasium of his native city, and studied from 1882 the natural sciences at the universities of Bonn, Berlin and Freiburg. Under the influence of August Weismann, Carl Eduard von Martens, Richard von Hertwig and Franz von Leydig he turned to zoology. He received his doctorate itself on 30 October 1885 in Bonn with a dissertation on the topic Bursaria truncatella taking into account other heterotrichs and Vorticellinen. On May 21, 1887, he passed the state examination.

After he had from 1887 to 1888 served his military service, he studied again two semesters in Berlin, in particular geography with Ferdinand von Richthofen. From 1 October 1889, he taught as a probationer at the Berlin Luisenstädtischer secondary school in chemistry and geography, but changed on January 1, 1890 as an intern at the Zoological Institute of the Friedrich -Wilhelms- University of Berlin. The assistant to Franz Schulze Eilhard which he occupied since April 1, 1890, he gave up two years later in order to deal at the zoological station Trieste with the eggs of Artemia. The end of 1892 he habilitated at the University of Marburg and remained there as a lecturer. The time from May 1894 to January 1895 he spent on the Seychelles island of Mahé with the study of caecilians ( Gymnophiona ). He was a participant in the German deep-sea expedition led by Carl Chun, with the SS Valdivia toured from 1898 to 1899 the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. From the collected material he took over the deep sea fish for processing and published the results in 1906 and 1908 as the 15th volume of the series Scientific Results of the German deep-sea expedition.

1906 Brauer was appointed on a proposal Chun as Director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin and at the same time as an associate professor. In 1909 he became a full honorary professor in 1914 and full professor in 1916 Privy Councillor.

Performance

Brauer's outstanding scientific achievement was the processing of data collected by the Valdivia expedition deep sea fish. In the first part of the work he described 209 species, of which 63 are unknown until then. In the second part he dealt in detail with the eyes and luminous organs of fishes. The hereby provided proving his competence as a systematic and comparative anatomist ultimately led to his appointment as Director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin. Brauer has also made ​​important contributions to the systematics of the hyrax and in the field of Geozoologie done.

As director, he managed to expand the collections of the Zoological Museum by buying heavily, for which he successfully soliciting private funding or even his personal resources to put, if the budget of the museum did not allow the purchase alone. He also reached that the collections of the expeditions of Valdivia and the Gauss after processing mostly came to the Berlin Museum, as well as the yield of the Svalbard drive from Fritz Schaudinn and Fritz Römer ( 1866-1909 ). Before his death he possessed testamentary that his library and all of its assets should fall at the Zoological Museum. The target of Brauer museum building in Dahlem did not materialize after the death of Friedrich Althoff. The existing museum was but from 1914 to 1917 significantly enhanced by an extension.

Brewer emerged as a publisher of important zoological works. After Chun's death he was in charge from 1914, the Scientific Results of the German deep-sea expedition, as well as the Fauna Arctica after the untimely death of Schaudinn and Romans. A particular concern of his was the publication of the series The freshwater fauna of Germany, which appeared in 19 booklets 1909-1912.

Brauer was from 1908 to 1917 on the board of the German Zoological Society operates most of the time as a secretary.

Deep Sea Fish by Brauer

Humpback Anglerfish ( Melanocetus johnsonii )

Ghosts fish ( Winteria tele copa )

Telescope fish ( Gigantura chuni )

Honors

On May 17, 1899 ie immediately after the return of Valdivia expedition, was Brauer full member of the Society for the promotion of the whole science in Marburg. Since 1 July 1915, he was a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences.

After Brauer a butterfly genus, as well as numerous animal species was named.

For his services to him in 1912 the Red Eagle Order was given IV class.

Writings (selection )

• August Brauer: Bursaria truncatella taking into account other heterotrichs and Vorticellinen. Dissertation, Bonn 1885 (PDF file, 2 MB, accessed 9 January 2010 )
• August Brauer: The deep-sea fish. Systematic part. Scientific Results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer " Valdivia " 1898-1899, Vol 15, Part 1, Fischer, Jena, 1906.
• August Brauer: The deep-sea fish. Anatomical part. Scientific Results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer " Valdivia " 1898-1899, Vol 15, Part 2, Fischer, Jena, 1908.
• August Brauer ( ed. ): The freshwater fauna of Germany: An excursion fauna, 19 booklets, Fischer, Jena 1909-1912