![Plate3-genetta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Plate3-genetta.jpg)
Johann Baptist Fischer, born 1803 in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
(Germany), died 30 May 1832 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 wit ...
(the Netherlands) was a German
naturalist, zoologist and botanist, doctor and surgeon.
Biography
Fischer was the son of a Munich schoolmaster, also named Johann Baptist, and his wife Cäcilie Haimerl. His younger brother was Sebastian Fischer, who also became a physician and naturalist spending part of his career in Russia and then Egypt.
J. B. Fisher was the assistant of the botanist
Carl Ludwig Blume
Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume (9 June 1796, Braunschweig – 3 February 1862, Leiden) was a German-Dutch botanist.
He was born at Braunschweig in Germany, but studied at Leiden University and spent his professional life wor ...
in the former national herbarium of
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
. In 1826, he joined an expedition to
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 List ...
, then a possession of the
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, and participated with Blume in writing the description of the species collected.
[Blume, C. L., Fischer, J. B. 1828. Flora Javae nec non insularum adjacentium. J. Frank, Brüssel]
Biodiversity Heritage Library
/ref> During the Belgian revolution of September 1830, he helped Philipp Franz von Siebold
Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora (plants), flora and fauna (animals), fauna and the introduction of ...
transferring herbarium specimens from Brussels to Leiden in the Netherlands.[Dorr, L.J., Nicolson, D.H. 2008. Taxonomic Literature, A selected guide to botanical publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types. Suppl. VII: F-Frer. A.R.G Gantner Verlag K.G., Ruggell, 469 p. .215-216 ] Johann Baptist Fischer also devoted himself to the study of mammals, and he published in 1830 his ''Synopsis Mammalium''. He died at a young age from septic infection.
Taxonomic descriptions
Johann Baptist Fischer described many species of plants, which were proven to be synonyms
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
, as ''Agathosma desciscens'' (J.B.Fisch. 1832) synonym for ''Agathosma bifida'' Bartl. & H.L.Wendl., 1824.
In his ''Synopsis Mammalium'', he also described a number of new mammalian species and subspecies.
Rodents
* ''Akodon azarae
''Akodon azarae'', also known as Azara's akodontMusser and Carleton, 2005, p. 1093 or Azara's grass mouse, is a rodent species from South America. It is found from southernmost Brazil through Paraguay and Uruguay into eastern Argentina. It is ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), named in honor of the Spanish naturalist Félix de Azara
Félix Manuel de Azara y Perera (18 May 1746 – 20 October 1821) was a Spanish military officer, naturalist, and engineer.
Life
Félix de Azara was born on 18 May 1746 in Barbunales, Aragon. He joined the army and attended a Spanish military ...
* ''Geocapromys brownii
The Jamaican coney (''Geocapromys brownii''), also known as the Jamaican hutia or Brown's hutia, is a small, endangered, rat-like mammal found only on the island of Jamaica. About the size of a rabbit, it lives in group nests and is active at nig ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the Jamaican hutia, named in honor of the Irish naturalist Patrick Browne
* ''Megalomys desmarestii
''Megalomys desmarestii'', also known as the Martinique muskrat,Watts, 1990, p. 528 Desmarest's pilorie,Musser and Carleton, 2005 or the Martinique giant rice rat, is an extinct rice rat from Martinique in the Caribbean.
Description
It was amon ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the muskrat of Martinique, an endemic rodent now extinct, and named in honor of the French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest
Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest (6 March 1784 – 4 June 1838) was a French Zoology, zoologist and author. He was the son of Nicolas Desmarest and father of Eugène Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest. Desmarest was a disciple of Georges Cuvier and Alex ...
.
Primates
* ''Trachypithecus johnii
The Nilgiri langur (''Semnopithecus johnii'') is a langur (a type of Old World monkey) . This primate has glossy black fur on its body and golden brown fur on its head. It is similar in size and long-tailed like the gray langurs. Females have a ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the Nilgiri langur, a small monkey native to the south west of the India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, named in honor of the missionary CS John.[John, CS 1795. Beschreibung einiger Affen aus Kasi im nördlichen Bengalen, vom Missionary John zu Trankenbar. Neue Schriften, Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 1: 211-218]
Bats
* '' Centronycteris maximiliani
The shaggy bat (''Centronycteris maximiliani'') is a bat species from northern South America. It appears to be a slow flier and has a rather regular pattern of foraging in its home range, a feature shared with other emballonurids. It is an aeria ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the hirsute bat, named in honor of the prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied
Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied (23 September 1782 – 3 February 1867) was a German explorer, ethnologist and naturalist. He led a pioneering expedition to southeast Brazil between 1815–1817, from which the album ''Reise na ...
* ''Pipistrellus rueppellii
''Pipistrellus'' is a genus of bats in the family Vespertilionidae and subfamily Vespertilioninae. The name of the genus is derived from the Italian word , meaning "bat" (from Latin "bird of evening, bat").
The size of the genus has been consi ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the Rüppell's pipistrelle, named in honor of the German naturalist Eduard Rüppell
Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell (20 November 1794 – 10 December 1884) was a German Natural history, naturalist and List of explorers, explorer. Rüppell is occasionally transliterated to "Rueppell" for the English alphabet, due to german ort ...
* ''Plecotus austriacus
The grey long-eared bat (''Plecotus austriacus'') is a fairly large European bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It hunts above woodland, often by day, and mostly for moths. In captivity, it has also been recorded t ...
'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the grey long-eared bat.
Carnivores
* '' Caracal caracal nubica'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the Nubian caracal
* '' Genetta genetta senegalensis'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the Senegalese common genet.
Marsupials
* '' Echymipera kalubu'' (J. Fischer, 1829), the common spiny bandicoot, a small marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...
of New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
.
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Johann Baptist
German naturalists
1803 births
1832 deaths
Botanists with author abbreviations