Carl Jakob Sundevall

Carl Jakob Sundevall
Born	Carl Jakob Sundevall (1801-10-22)22 October 1801
Died	2 February 1875(1875-02-02)(aged 73)

Carl Jakob Sundevall(22 October 1801,Högestad– 2 February 1875) was aSwedishzoologist. Sundevall studied atLund University,where he received a Ph.D. in 1823. After traveling to East Asia, he studied medicine, graduating as a Doctor of Medicine in 1830.

He was employed at theSwedish Museum of Natural History,Stockholm,from 1833, and was professor and keeper of thevertebratesection from 1839 to 1871. He wroteSvenska Foglarna(1856–87), which described 238 species of birds observed in Sweden. He classified a number of birds collected in southern Africa byJohan August Wahlberg.In 1835, he developed aphylogenyfor the birds based on the muscles of the hip and leg that contributed to later work byThomas Huxley.He then went on to examine the arrangement of the deepplantartendonsin the bird's foot. This latter information is still used by avian taxonomists. Sundevall was also anentomologistandarachnologist,for which (for the latter field) in 1833 he published an early catalogConspectus Arachnidum.Much later in 1862, he wrote a monograph proposing a universalphonetic Alpha bet,Om phonetiska bokstäver.

Legacy

Sundevall is commemorated in the scientific names of four species of reptiles:Elapsoidea sundevallii,Leptotyphlops sundewalli,Mochlus sundevallii,andProsymna sundevalli.Also the rodent,Sundevall's jird(Meriones crassus), is named after him.

Sources

• Anonymous (1875). [Sundevall, C. J.]Journal of Ornithology23:214–215.
• Anonymous (1875). [Sundevall, C. J.]Journal of Zoology4:61.
• Areschoug, J. E.(1879).Minnesteckning öfver C. J. Sundevall.Stockholm.
• Bonnet, P.(1945).Bibliographia Araneorum.Toulouse.

External links

• Ibis: Obituary of Carl Jakob Sundevall