Dirk Albert Hooijer (30 May 1919 – 26 November 1993) was a Dutch paleontologist. Hooijer was born in

Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...

on Sumatra, but spent his youth in Bogor on

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. In 1932, his family moved to

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

where he finished his high school education at Dalton Den Haag school in 1937. Subsequently, he studied geology on the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. In 1941 he joined the staff of the

Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie The Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) was a museum on the Rapenburg in Leiden, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1820 by Royal Decree from a merger of several existing collections. This happened on the initi ...

in Leiden, where he was especially interested in fossil

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...

es and

hippopotami The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

. In 1946, he became curator of the Dubois collection. In the same year he promoted under Professor

Hilbrand Boschma Hilbrand Boschma (22 April 1893 – 22 July 1976) was a Dutch zoologist and director of the Rijksmuseum of Natural History in Leiden. Boschma studied botany and zoology at the University of Amsterdam. He went to the former Dutch East Indies, ...

(1893–1976) with his dissertation ''Prehistoric and fossil Rhinoceroses from the Malay Archipelago and India''. From 1950 to 1951 he got a

Rockefeller fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Ca ...

and worked at the American Museum of Natural History in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. From 1970 until his retirement in 1979 he was professor at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

. Hooijer published 267 scientific articles about vertebrate fossils from Indonesia, Africa, the Near East (especially Israel), the Netherlands, the Antilles, and South America. Many of these works were devoted to fossil rhinoceroses, cats, hogs, rodents, primates, and probiscoidae. He described six new genera, including '' Celebochoerus'', '' Chilotheridium'', '' Epileptobos'', '' Paradiceros'', '' Paulocnus'', and '' Spelaeomys'' and 47 new species and subspecies, including '' Babyrousa bolabatuensis'', ''

Elephas celebensis ''Elephas celebensis'', the Sulawesi dwarf elephant, is an extinct species of elephant. Description ''Elephas celebensis'' (sometimes referred as ''Stegoloxodon celebensis'') was about half the size of '' Archidiskodon planifrons'', to which bot ...

'' and the Flores Cave Rat. Hooijer was married and had two daughters and one son. He died in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

References

* L. B. Holthuis: ''1820 - 1958 Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie'' C.h.j.m. Fransen, C. van Achterberg, P.j. van Helsdingen (editors) Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum 1995
PDF online
(in Dutch)

External links

1919 births 1993 deaths Dutch paleontologists Dutch curators People from Medan Dutch expatriates in the United States {{netherlands-scientist-stub