Carl Jakob Sundevall (22 October 1801, Högestad – 2 February 1875) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

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 ...

. Sundevall studied at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Swedish Museum of Natural History The Swedish Museum of Natural History ( sv, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, literally, the National Museum of Natural History), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

from 1833, and was professor and keeper of the

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

section from 1839 to 1871. He wrote ''Svenska Foglarna'' (1856–87) which described 238 species of birds observed in Sweden. He classified a number of birds collected in southern Africa by

Johan August Wahlberg Johan August Wahlberg (9 October 1810, in Lackarebäck, Sweden – 6 March 1856, in Lake Ngami, Bechuanaland) was a Swedish naturalist and explorer. Wahlberg started studying chemistry at the University of Uppsala in 1829, and later forestry, a ...

. In 1835, he developed a

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...

for the birds based on the muscles of the hip and leg that contributed to later work by

Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The storie ...

. He then went on to examine the arrangement of the deep

plantar Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

tendon A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...

s in the bird's foot. This latter information is still used by avian taxonomists. Sundevall was also an

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

and

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and harvestmen. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly, the study of sp ...

, for which (for the latter field) in 1833 he published an early catalog ''Conspectus Arachnidum''. Much later in 1862, he wrote a monograph proposing a universal phonetic alphabet, ''Om phonetiska bokstäver''.

Legacy

Sundevall is commemorated in the scientific names of four species of reptiles: '' Elapsoidea sundevalli,

Leptotyphlops sundewalli Sundevall's worm snake (''Tricheilostoma sundewalli'') is a species of snake in the family Leptotyphlopidae. McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré TA (1999). ''Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 1''. Washington, ...

Mochlus sundevallii ''Mochlus sundevallii'', also known commonly as Peters' eyelid skink, Peters' writhing skink, and Sundevall's writhing skink, is a species of lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. Etymology The specifi ...

'', and ''

Prosymna sundevalli Prosymna ( grc, Πρόσυμνα) was a town in ancient Argolis, in whose territory the celebrated Heraeum, or temple of Hera, stood. Statius gives it the epithet "celsa." Pausanias mentions only a district of this name. According to Greek mytho ...

''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Sundevall", p. 258). Also the rodent,

Sundevall's jird Sundevall's jird (''Meriones crassus'') is a species of rodent in the family of Muridae. It is found in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Pakistan, Morocco, Niger, Palestine, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, ...

(''Meriones crassus'') is named after him.

References

Sources

*Anonymous (1875). undevall, C. J.''Journ. Ornith''. 23: 214–215. *Anonymous (1875). undevall, C. J. ''J. Zool.'' 4: 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
Swedish taxonomists 1801 births 1875 deaths Swedish entomologists Swedish mammalogists Swedish ornithologists Swedish arachnologists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 19th-century Swedish zoologists Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala {{zoologist-stub