Alexander von Middendorff

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Alexander Theodor von Middendorff (in Russian Александр Федорович Миддендорф) (August 6, 1815 - January 16, 1894) was a Russian zoologist and explorer of Baltic-German origin.

Middendorff was born in Saint Petersburg, where he received his early education. He then studied for a medical degree at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1837. He undertook further studies at Berlin, Erlangen, Vienna, and Breslau. In 1839 he became Assistant Professor of Zoology at Kiev. Shortly afterwards he took part in Karl Ernst von Baer's expedition to the Kola Peninsula.

From 1843 to 1845 he travelled to the Taimyr Peninsula on behalf of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He published his findings in Reise in den äussersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens (Travels in the extreme north and east of Siberia) (1848-75), which included an account of the effects of permafrost on the spread of animals and plants. He also wrote Die Isepiptesen Russlands (1855), an account of bird migration in Russia, and a monograph on molluscs, Beiträge zu einer Malacozoologia Rossica (1848-9), in which he coined the term radula.

In 1869, A.T. von Middendorff tried to draw the attention of Russian Government to the feasibility and potential benefits of the domestication of the moose (Alces alces).^[1]

He died at Hellenurme in the Russian Empire (now in Valga County, Estonia).

Middendorff's Grasshopper Warbler, Middendorff's Cape (Novaya Zemlya), Kodiak Bear, and Middendorff's Gulf (Taymyr Peninsula) are named after him.

[edit] References

• Barbara and Richard Mearns - Audubon to Xantus, The Lives of Those Commemorated in North American Bird Names ISBN 0124874231

1. ^ A.V. Baranov, V.M. Dzhurovich, N.V. Sokolov. "The Achievements and Issues in Moose Domestication" (Баранов А.В., Джурович В.М., Соколов Н.В., "Достижения и задачи по одомашниванию лося") The Moose Husbandry Laboratory page at the official site of Kostroma Agricultural Research Institute. (Костромской научно-исследовательский институт сельского хозяйства. Лаборатория лосеводства) (Russian)