Eugen von Keyserling
Eugen Graf von Keyserling (born 22 Märzjul / April 3 1832greg in Pokroy ( Lithuanian: .. Pakruojis ) in Lithuania, † April 4, 1889 at his estate Ernsdorff at Reichenbach in Silesia ) was a deutschbaltischer explorer and zoologist as one of the major arachnologists of the 19th century. Behind the scientific names of animals in field guides and the like, his name often " Keyserling " is abbreviated.
Life
Keyserling studied Kameralwissenschaften and zoology at the University of Dorpat in Dorpat in 1852 and was a member of the Corps Curonia Dorpat. Following the study, he participated in expeditions of the Russian government in the Tsarist Empire, the Caucasus, and in particular 1858/59 on a scientific expedition to Khorasan. In the course of this expedition he also described non- spinning, such as Iranian species of freshwater fish (eg Squalius latus ). He continued to travel to England, France and Algeria. He met his future wife Margaret, the daughter of the historian and the Bavarian envoy in Geneva William of Donniges. As its negotiators he was involved together with Wilhelm Arndt also in the history of the duel between Ferdinand Lassalle and the Romanian princes of Yanko Racowietza 1864 in Geneva. After his marriage in 1864 to the daughter of Donniges Keyserling gave up his existing travel plans to America and acquired an estate in Lower Silesia, where he did farming. He devoted himself to continue his specialist subject, the spiders, and got this also from the German - American arachnologists George Marx and other friends of his field sent. Marx presented his life's work Spiders America after the early death Keyserling's ready for print ready, this is a bibliophile professionals today for treasure. The drawings contained herein are from the hand Keyserling.
His collection included over 10,000 spider species, and was purchased after his death by the Natural History Museum in London, after the Natural History Museum in Berlin had rejected the offer of the Countess Margarethe von Keyserling widow to acquire the collection for 15,000 Reichsmarks in 1890.
Works
- He finished the arachnids of Australia (1871-1883) for Ludwig Carl Christian Koch.
- The spiders of America (Editor postmortem: George Marx). Bauer & Raspe, Nuremberg 1880-1893, 6 parts in 4 volumes.