Henrik Nikolai Krøyer (22 March 1799 – 14 November 1870) was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

. Born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, he was a brother of the composer

Hans Ernst Krøyer Hans Ernst (sometimes Ernest) Krøyer (31 January"Hans ...

. He started studying medicine at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

in 1817, which he later changed to

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

. While a student, he was a supporter of the

Philhellenic Philhellenism ("the love of Greek culture") was an intellectual movement prominent mostly at the turn of the 19th century. It contributed to the sentiments that led Europeans such as Lord Byron and Charles Nicolas Fabvier to advocate for Greek i ...

movement, and he participated as a volunteer in the

Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted by ...

along with several fellow students. Upon his return to Denmark, Krøyer gained an interest in zoology. In 1827, he took the position as assistant teacher in

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

, where he met, and later married, Bertha Cecilie Gjesdal. Bertha's sister, Ellen Cecilie Gjesdal, was deemed unfit to bring up her child, so Henrik and Bertha adopted the boy, who took on the name Peder Severin Krøyer, and later became a well-known painter. Krøyer returned to

in 1830 where he was employed as a teacher in natural history at the Military Academy. As the course lacked a textbook, Krøyer wrote and published ' (1833). During his career he often travelled along the coasts of Denmark where he studied marine life, especially fish and

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s, and this resulted in his main work ' ("The Fish of Denmark", 3 volumes, 1838-1853). Krøyer also founded the journal ''Naturhistorisk tidsskrift'', for which he served as editor and to which he contributed numerous articles. During his life he visited most of the coasts of Western Europe as well as

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. But his health eventually deteriorated and in 1869 he had to take his leave of his position of head of the Natural Museum of Copenhagen which he had held since 1847. He gained the title of professor in 1853.

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