Hermann Landois

Hermann Landois ( born April 19, 1835 in Münster ( Westphalia ), † January 29, 1905 ) was a German professor of zoology and founder of the Westphalian Zoo Münster.

Life and work

Landois was the son of Ferdinand Theodor officials Landois and his wife Antoinette Josephine Pollack. The famous physiologist Leonard Landois was his brother. Landois attended high school in the Pauline Munster and eventually made as "external " Easter 1856 Abitur at the Gymnasium in Recklinghausen. In the same year he began at the University of Münster to study theology and the natural sciences. In 1859 he finished this study and was also ordained a priest.

From 1860 Landois deserved for two years his living as a private tutor in a noble family. Subsequently, he was a lecturer at the agricultural school in the castle Botzlar, Selm, works. The following year he received his doctorate at the University of Greifswald in zoology. There he worked with his brother Leonard, who taught physiology as a physician in Greifswald.

As a Catholic priest and teacher at the high school in the Pauline Münster, he was one of the first German educator who regularly anfertigte for educational purposes biologics and geological finds collected. 1869 Habilitation Landois and got a job as a lecturer in zoology at the Academy of Münster. 1873 Landois became the A.O. Professor of Zoology and three years later, an associate professor of zoology at the Academy of Sciences in Münster. Condition for this office, however, was the task of teaching at the Pauline. A full professorship was Landois not given.

1871 Landois was instrumental in the establishment of the Westphalian association for bird protection, poultry and Singing Birds. In addition, he was appointed head of the zoological section of the newly established Provincial Association for Science and Art, which was founded by his friend Ferdinand von Droste zu Hulshoff.

1874 Treaty of Westphalia Zoological Garden was established in Munster and opened on 26 June 1875 as the first zoo in Westphalia. With creative financing ideas Landois led through the structure, so he was, for example shares " to 10 thalers " out. The fact Landois generated an amount of 30,000 thalers. The founding of the evening party Zoologischer Garten helped finance. On a plot of the Himmelreichallee and the Munster Aa, the Landois acquired personally, then heeled the Münster Zoo.

His interest in the natural sciences, his secular work in general, alienated Landois the Church more and more, and led in 1876 to the fact that Landois was suspended from the priesthood. In well over 1000 publications Landois addressed the natural sciences, particularly zoology. Some works, such as the co-authored with Bernard Altum " Textbook of Zoology " (1870 ) are still considered important milestones towards modern biology class. Also of fiction as poems in dialect or münsterländischem his humorous novel " Frans Essink " he wrote, a satire on the clergy, of which he later wrote several sequels.

Also technically Landois was versed He developed still in use today Landoisklappe ( monkeys flap ), the animals allowed an exchange between outdoor enclosure and cage by one of them even to open and self-closing door for the first time. Today's Aa was propagated mostly by him, though not until 1914 with the Italian workers work could begin on the dam.

Between 1975 and 2011 reversed a " water bus " - a passenger ship on the type of Dutch canal boats - on the Aa between the Golden Bridge and the Münster Zoo. In honor Landois it carried its name.

His quirky kind of ran through his whole life. So he founded an anti- cat club, as a declared bird friend. At his residence, Tuckesburg, served the stuffed monkey Lehmann as his constant companion. According to tradition, the monkey said to have died in a " drunkard liver " ( med alcoholic hepatitis ), also his horse Landois had frequently been soaked with beer. During his lifetime he set for himself before the Tuckesburg a monument. It still exists today, but received the Allwetterzoo a new location. It is noteworthy that he had run the cylinder of his status image as nest box. The Tuckesburg Dating from 1883, is still found at the site of the old zoo near the center of the building society LBS at Lake Aa.

Landois is buried at the Central Cemetery in Muenster, ie very close to "his" old Zoogeländes.

Works

• Frans Essink (1874 )
• Textbook of Botany (1872 )
• Textbook of Zoology (1870, together with Bernard Altum )
• Call, statutes and plan to set up a zoological garden in Münster, Westphalia (1873, online: ULB Münster)
• Thier voices ( Herder, 1874)
• Westphalia wildlife in Words and Pictures (1883 )