Emma Richter (4 March 1888 – 15 November 1956) was a German paleontologist. She is best known for her work concerning

Trilobites Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...

Life and career

Richter was born in Steinheim on 4 May 1888. She spent around 45 years volunteering at the

Senckenberg Museum The Naturmuseum Senckenberg is a museum of natural history, located in Frankfurt am Main. It is the second-largest of its type in Germany. The museum contains a large and diverse collection of birds with 90,000 bird skins, 5,050 egg sets, 17,0 ...

alongside her husband

Rudolf Richter Rudolf Richter (7 April 1883 – 5 January 1962) was a Bohemian racewalker. He competed in the 10 km walk at the 1912 Summer Olympics The 1912 Summer Olympics ( sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1912), officially known as the Games of the V Olympi ...

. She developed a new way to assess trilobites through paloecological-biofacial assessment while representing her husband at the museum during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Richter also worked on several projects with her husband including studying 500

halftone Halftone is the reprographic Reprography (a portmanteau of ''reproduction'' and ''photography'') is the reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means, such as photography or xerography. Reprography is commonly used in catal ...

images of trilobites for their book ''Die Trilobiten des Oberdevons Beiträge zur Kenntnis devonischer Trilobiten'' and creating a comparative database with over 44,000 images. Richter was made an honorary member of the

Paleontological Society of America The Paleontological Society, formerly the Paleontological Society of America, is an international organisation devoted to the promotion of paleontology. The Society was founded in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland, and was incorporated in April 1968 in ...

in 1934 and received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

in 1949. Richter died on 15 November 1956, two months before her husband also died.

Family

Richter married Rudolf Richter, a fellow paleontologist, in 1913 and they had one daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richter, Emma 1888 births 1956 deaths German paleontologists German women paleontologists