Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm

Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm (11 September 1847 – 13 September 1875) was a German naturalist who served aboard the Challenger expedition.

Willemoes-Suhm was born in Glückstadt, Duchy of Holstein.^[1] After starting to study law at the University of Bonn, Willemoes-Suhm left Bonn to study zoology at Munich under Professor Karl von Siebold.^[1] Beginning in April 1869, he studied at the University of Göttingen, and gained his doctorate there. In 1870, he moved to Kiel, where he met Professor Karl von Kupffer, and there he collected specimens in the Bay of Kiel, which he analysed for his habilitation.^[1] In 1871, Willemoes-Suhm began to lecture at the University of Munich. In 1872, he was on board the Phønix with the Danish Faeroer Expedition, and described the vertebrates and polychaetes of the Faroe Islands.^[2] The Phønix docked in Leith, and while in Edinburgh, Willemoes-Suhm met Charles Wyville Thomson, who would lead the Challenger expedition later that year.^[3]

Willemoes-Suhm joined the Challenger expedition at the last minute,^[4] and worked on many of the crustaceans that voyage discovered. He died on 13 September 1875, during the journey from Hawaii to Tahiti,^[5] and was buried at sea after a short illness with erysipelas.^[6] The genus Willemoesia is named after him, as is Suhm Island in Royal Sound (Kerguelen Archipelago), which was first charted on the voyage of the H.M.S. Challenger, and the Sohm Abyssal Plain in the North Atlantic Ocean.^[7]^[8] He was awarded the Challenger Medal posthumously.^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Kortum, Gerhard (1996). "The German Challenger of Neptune" (PDF). The History of Oceanography Newsletter. No. 8. International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science. pp. 3–6. ISSN 1013-3917. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 October 2010.
^ "Periods of investigation". BIOFAR. Kaldbak: Havlívfrøðiliga royndarstøðin. 23 May 2005. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010.
^ Aitken, Frédéric; Foulc, Jean-Numa (2019). The First Explorations of the Deep Sea by H.M.S. Challenger (1872–1876). From Deep Sea to Laboratory. Vol. 1. London: ISTE. doi:10.1002/9781119610953. ISBN 978-1-78630-374-5. S2CID 146750038.
^ Corfield, Richard (February 2008). "The chemist who saved biology" (PDF). Chemistry World. Vol. 5, no. 2. London: Royal Society of Chemistry. pp. 56–60. ISSN 1473-7604.
^ Thomson, C. Wyville (1875). "Dr. R. von Willemoes-Suhm". Nature. 13 (318): 88–89. Bibcode:1875Natur..13...88T. doi:10.1038/013088a0.
^ "Tomb of Dr. Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm". NHM Images. London: Natural History Museum. Asset 9852.
^ "Catalogue Details: Letter from Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm to C. T. von Siebold, 1875". State Library of New South Wales. Call Number MLMSS 7686. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
^ "Marine Gazetteer Placedetails - Suhm Plain". April 22, 2020. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
^ Stein, Glenn M. (22 March 2009). Bossard, David C. (ed.). "The Challenger Medal Roll (1895)". Library of 19th Century Science.