Johan August Wahlberg

Johan August Wahlberg ( born October 9, 1810 in Lagklarebäck, Sweden, † March 6, 1856 Lake Ngami, Bechuanaland ) was a Swedish naturalist and explorer.

Life

Wahlberg was born in 1810 as the son of a wholesaler. At the age of nine, his father two years later the mother died. Wahlberg first got private lessons and then moved to the high school in Linköping. In 1829 he began studying chemistry at Uppsala University and after a year to forestry and agriculture. In 1832 he accompanied the entomologist Carl Henrik Boheman on a trip to Norway. 1833 and 1834 he traveled through Sweden and Germany on various forestry research projects. He also made an examination as a surveyor and completed his studies in 1834. In 1836 he received the title ' "engineer" and taught at the School of Surveying physics, history, science and astronomy.

Between 1838 and 1856 he traveled through southern Africa, and sent thousands of animals and plants in Sweden, including large mammals such as elephants, rhinos, giraffes, but also thousands of species of birds and more than 8000 species of insects. When exploring the upper reaches of the Limpopo Wahlberg was killed by a wounded elephant.

Because the message had not yet arrived from his death in Sweden, he was elected in October 1856 Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is therefore the only member of the Academy, which was chosen after his death.

Numerous plant and animal species were discovered by Wahlberg and are named after him, including the Epaulettenflughundeart Epomophorus wahlbergi or Wahlberg Gecko ( Homopholis wahlbergii ) and the African Blütenmantis ( Pseudocrabothra wahlbergii ).