Helmut Sick

Maximilian Friedrich Heinrich Helmut Sick ( born January 10, 1910 in Leipzig, † 5 March 1991 in Rio de Janeiro ) was a German-born ornithologist, one of the most outstanding experts in the Brazilian avifauna. From the Brazilians, he received the nickname sicki.

Life and work

Helmut Sick was fascinated as a child and teenager of the bird world. At 18, he joined the " club -Saxon Ornithologists ' in and with 21 he became a member of the German Ornithologists' Society. In 1933 he went to Berlin and studied under Erwin Stresemann 1936 ornithology. His dissertation, which was published in 1937 in the "Journal of Ornithology ," was a study of the functional morphology of the fine structure of feathers. In 1939 he accepted a proposal Stresemann and undertook an expedition to explore the Rotschnabelhokkos to Brazil, which was originally supposed to last three months. Helmut Sick subsequently undertook further research in the states of Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and Mato Grosso, and so he lived hidden until 1942 in Espirito Santo. After Brazil had in 1942 declared war on Germany, Sick was imprisoned. In 1945, he was released but remained in Brazil. In 1952, Helmut Sick Brazilian citizen. In 1957 he published his book " Tukaní " the first successful geographical and ornithological expedition in 1943 to Central Brazil ( Mato Grosso, Pará ), which was very well known. From 1946 accompanied Sick as an employee of Fundaçao Brasil Central ( FBC ), a 1943 founded and funded by the government organization dedicated to research in Central Brazil, this expedition that crossed the rivers of the Rio Roncador, the river Xingu and Rio Tapajos. Over 500 bird species have been reclassified and several Indian tribes were discovered who lived unnoticed by the outside world as in the Stone Age. The main focus, however, Sicks was to explore the Lear's Macaw ( Anodorhynchus leari ). After a nearly 25 - year search ( 1954-1979 ) and five expeditions sighted Professor Sick and his expedition members on January 10, 1979 in Raso da Catarina, in the north of the state of Bahia, the first Lear's Macaw in the wild. The bird had previously been known for 120 years only by captive specimens and feathers. In 1984 he published his two-volume work of old age " Ornitologia Brasileira " (English: Birds in Brazil: A Natural History, 1993), which is part of 1635 described species of the most comprehensive field guides on the Brazilian avifauna. In addition, Sick published over 200 publications.

The following bird species have been described by Helmut Sick for the first time:

• Brasilia - Tapaculo ( Scytalopus novacapitalis ), 1958
• Gelbscheitelpipra ( Lepidothrix vilasboasi ), 1959
• Northern Stirnhaubentapaculo ( Merulaxis stresemanni ), 1960
• Long-tailed shore Wipper ( Cinclodes pabsti ), 1969

Works

• Tukaní - Under animals and Indians of central Brazil for the first crossing from SE to NW. Parey, Hamburg 1957.
• Axel Amuchastegui: Studies of birds and mammals of South America. With texts by Helmut Sick. John Murray in association with The Tryon Gallery, London 1967 (English).
• Ornitologia Brasileira. Linha Grafica Editora, Brasilia, 1984, ISBN 85-230-0087-9, ( Portuguese).
• Birds of Brazil. A Natural History. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1993, ISBN 0-691-08569-2.