Who is Wilhelm Peters?

Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German naturalist and explorer.

He was partner in crime to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and well along became curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the traveler Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin taking into account an enormous collection of natural archives specimens, which he subsequently described in Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique… in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt (1852–1882). The do something was amassed in its coverage, dealing gone mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the similar year he was elected a foreign fanatic of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years time, he greatly increased the Berlin Museum’s herpetological addition to a size comparable to those of Paris and London. Herpetology was Peters’ main interest, and he described 122 additional genera and 649 species from regarding the world.

See also  Laurent Le Bon: life and works

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