Gerd Heinrich

Gerd Hermann Heinrich
Born November 7, 1896
Berlin, Germany
Died December 17, 1984
Farmington, Maine, USA
Fields Entomologist

Gerd Hermann Heinrich (7 November 1896 – 17 December 1984) was a Berlin-born entomologist and ornithologist known for his studies of parasitic Hymenoptera of Ichneumonidae family and description of several bird species in Celebes, Dutch East Indies.

Early life

Gerd Hermann Heinrich was born in Berlin on 7 November 1896, the son of a physician, Dr Herrmann Heinrich, and Margarethe von Tepper-Ferguson Heinrich, heir of a large agricultural estate at Borowke, where he grew up. Prior to 1918, the lands were in the German province of West Prussia. He was educated at home by a tutor until his 9th year. In 1914 he graduated "primus omnium" from the Askanische Gymnasium in Berlin. He had planned a career in medicine, but his interest in natural history emerged already at an early age and was influenced of Professor Heymons, one of the Custodians of Entomology at the Museum für Naturkunde. He became interested in parasitic wasps of the family Ichneumonidae, a large, diverse, and at that time taxonomically poorly known group of insects.

His education was interrupted by the beginning of World War I when he was called up for military service and became a pilot. After the war the family estate became a part of Poland where Heinrich married and lived with his family. His graduate studies (Humboldt University, Berlin, 1932–37) were once again interrupted by World War II.

In 1927, he made an expedition to Mount Elbrus in Northern Persia (provinces of Ghilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabad). In 1930-1932 he went to the island of Sulawesi (Celebes) in Indonesia (Latimodjong Mountains, Menkoka Mountains, and Minahasa) and Molucca Islands (Halmahera and Batjan). This led him to his first major work, "Die Ichneumoninae von Celebes", published in 1934. He also published a travelogue on Celebes in 1932. In 1935, Heinrich undertook an expedition to the Balkan Mountains and the Rhodope Mountains in South-Eastern Europe. In 1938, he published the results of processing materials on Ichneumoninae of Madagascar in his major work, "Les Ichneumonides de Madagascar".

In 1934, René Malaise organized a zoological expedition to the northeastern parts of Burma. The material he collected was sent to Heinrich for identification and classification. The abundance of bizarre, luxuriant, and unknown forms in this collection was so fascinating that Heinrich made his own expedition to the (Chin Hills of Burma in 1937-1938. The results of processing the materials collected by Malaise and Heinrich is a revealing example of the difficulties this researcher had to overcome to achieve his goal.

In 1939, the Second World War begun. Poland was occupied and difficulties in continuing the work became almost insurmountable. By the end of 1943, according to Heinrich, a large monograph was finally ready for publication. During this period in Germany, a so-called "total war" was declared, which made it impossible to publish a monograph. The front line was approaching steadily. To save the manuscript, Heinrich soldered it into metal boxes, secretly buried it in a forest in a dry place and sent a copy to his friend, the physical chemist Max Vollmer.

Post-World War II period

Postwar Europe was completely devastated. Gerd Heinrich contacted zoological organizations in almost all countries of the continent, but not one of them had the funds for the publication of his monograph. Heinrich refers to the leading U.S. ichneumonologist Dr. Henry Townes and accepts his offer to immigrate to this country. In 1951, Heinrich and his family arrived to the U.S. Difficult living conditions in the early years of emigration, occasional earnings, lack of funds for the translation of the manuscript to English, as well as lack of access to the type material, buried in Poland, put off for the many years a publication of Heinrich's monograph on oriental Ichneumoninae.

Finally, things start looking up, and in 1952-1953. Gerd Heinrich took part in the zoological expedition to Mexico. In the years 1953-1963 Heinrich participated in expeditions to Africa, mainly to collect birds and mammals for Yale University, the University of Kansas, the Field Museum of Natural History and other such institutions. Simultaneously he continued collecting ichneumon flies. During 1953-1955 he participates in an expedition to West Africa: Angola (northeastern and southeastern provinces, Mount Moco, Mt. Soke). In 1957-1958 - West Africa: Angola (northern and northwestern provinces). In 1961-1963 he took part in an expedition to East Africa: Tanganyika (Mt. Meru, Usambara Mountains, Uluguru Mountains, Livingston Mountains, Rungwe Mountains, Ufipa Plateau), Northern Rhodesia and in 1963 – to South Africa.

Heinrich received partial support from the Canadian Department of Agriculture to fulfillment of the work "Synopsis of Nearctic Ichneumoninae Stenopneusticae", which was published by him in 1961-1962 in 7 volumes.

It was 15 years since he had left Poland and he realized that he would never return to access the oriental Ichneumoninae type material he has hidden. He therefore wrote to the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, describing the place where he buried material, and suggested using mine detectors to find metal boxes containing specimens and digging them up. Polish scientists did just that, and, to everyone’s surprise, the insects were in a great condition. The specimens were added to the collection of the Polish Academy of Sciences. To Heinrich an opportunity to get on a provisional basis to work any required material at any time was promised. As Heinrich writes in his memoirs: "…this obstacle for the publication of the Oriental Monograph was, at last, eliminated".[1] The materials in his African expeditions, were published by him in "Synopsis and Reclassification of the Ichneumoninae of Africa, south of the Sahara", published through a grant from the National Science Foundation, by the Farmington College Press. In preparation for this monograph Heinrich made a round trip through Europe, visiting all major European museums to examine the African types and African specimens kept there. In the course of this journey he stopped in Stockholm where he met the entomologists Erich Kjellander and René Malaise. The new version of "Burmesische Ichneumoninae" was published by parts in "Entomologisk Tidskrift" where first 7 issues were published. Remaining parts from the 8th to the 11th of were subsequently published in the "Annales Zoologici" by the Polish Academy of Sciences during 1974-1980.

His last major monograph, "Ichneumoninae of Florida and neighboring states" was published in 1977. It contains descriptions of 50 genera and 135 species, 47 of which are new to science. Throughout his life, invaluable help and support to Heinrich was provided by his wife Hildegarde. Until his last days Heinrich continued working on systematics of Ichneumoninae. His last article was published in 1980.

On December 18, 1984 he died aged 88. As reported in The Lewiston (Main) Daily sun from 17.12.1984: «He survived by his wife Hildegarde Bury Heinrich of Wilton; son, Dr. Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont; daughter, Mrs. Marianne Gerda Sewall of Jefferson and four grandchildren. Many species of insects, especially Hymenoptera are named after Heinrich.[2] In honor of his wife and invaluable assistant Hildegarde Maria Heinrich ichneumon fly Heinrichiellus hildegardae (Tereshkin, 1996) is named.

Contributions

Over his career Heinrich developed a standardized system of taxa description that greatly facilitates taxa identification and comparative analysis. The introduction of such a system to the systematics of any entomological objects, t would have raised their study to a qualitatively new level. He is the author of 4 major publications on Ichneumonidae, 4 popular travelogues, 93 smaller but significant publications on Ichneumoninae, 3 publications on European mammals, 3 publications on the biology of the birds of Angola, and 2 publications on the systematics of the birds of Angola coauthored with Dr. S. Dillon Ripley.[3][4] He described 1479 species and subspecies of Ichneumoninae from Nearctic, Africa, Madagascar, Oriental Region and Palearctic.[5] Moreover, most of them were described based on his own collections. Therefore the taxa described by him can be called “discovered” as “new to science”. Heinrich’s major publications are: “Die Ichneumoninae von Celebes bearbeitet auf grund der ausbeute der Celebes expedition G. Heinrich 1930–1932” (1934, 265 pages, 7 plates of figures), “Les Ichneumonides de Madagascar” (1938, 1139 pages, 6 plates), “Synopsis of Nearctic Ichneumoninae Stenopneusticae with particular reference to the Northeastern Region (Hymenoptera)” (1961–1962, 7 volumes, 886 pages, numerous illustrations), “Burmesische Ichneumoninae” (1965–70, 10 parts, 457 pages), “Synopsis and reclassification of the Ichneumoninae of Africa south of the Sahara” (1967–68, 5 volumes, 1,258 pages, numerous text figures), “Ichneumoninae of Florida and Neighboring States (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae, subfamily Ichneumoninae)” (1977, 350 pages, 8 color plates and numerous text figures). Travelog books were about Heinrich expeditions, including 1 on the Celebes Island (1932), 1 on Burma (1940), and 1 on Persia (1933).

G. Heinrich collections are deposited in Warsaw (C. G. H. I), Poland (Instytut Zoologiczny, Polska Akademia Nauk), Munich (C. G. H. II), Germany (Zoologische Staatssammlung München),[5] at Collection of H. Townes (Gensville, Florida) and partially (species from Madagascar and some others) in Museum für Naturkunde, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin .

Entomological publications

References

  1. ↑ GUPTA, V. (1989). "Contribution of G. Heinrich to the study of the subfamily Ichneumoninae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) together with a bibliography of his publications.". Oriental insects 23: 337–348.
  2. ↑ "Gerd Hermann Heinrich - Obituary". The Lewiston Daily Sun. Dec 18, 1984.
  3. ↑ WEEMS, H. V.; G. Heinrich (1977). "Foreword". Arthropods of Florida and Neighboring Land Areas (, Florida Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services) 9: 1–350.
  4. ↑ WEEMS, H.V.; HOWARD W. (1986). "In Memoriam: Gerd H. Heinrich". Florida Entomologist 69 (1): 281–182.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 von DILLER, E. (1992). "Chronik der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München". Spixiana. 83-100 (17).

Further reading

External links