Hermann Burmeister   1807-1892

 
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HERMANN BURMEISTER

  

Hermann Burmeister was born 15 January 1807 in Stralsund, Germany. He received diplomas for doctor of philosophy and medicine from the University of Halle and Greifwald in 1829. Under the auspices of Alexander von Humboldt, Burmeister traveled to Brazil from September 1850 to March 1852 where he studied natural history in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janiero. In the fall of 1856, Burmeister returned to South America to study natural history in the Republics of Argentina and Uruguay. He became the Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Buenos Aires in 1862 where he worked for thirty years until his death.

Burmeister was an indefatigable naturalist. His interests included entomology, paleontology, ornithology, geology, and meteorology. His entomological research dealt primarily with Coleoptera, including buprestids, carabids, cerambycids, cassidines, and elaterids. In the area of scarab systematics, Burmeister provided a synthetic review of the classification and taxonomy of world Scarabaeidae in his five volume (six parts) tome, Handbuch der Entomology (1832-1847). He published over 75 entomological papers. Burmeister's collection, including type specimens, is at the Zoological Museum in Halle, Germany.

Reference: Berg, C. 1894. Notice nécrologique sur le docteur Hermann Burmeister. Annals de la Societe Entomologique du France 63: 705-712.

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