Carl Franz Anton Ritter von Schreibers (15 August 1775 – 21 May 1852) was an Austrian naturalist who was a native of

Pressburg Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

Habsburg Empire The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...

(today

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

). In 1847, an uncommon

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

-phosphide ((Fe,Ni)3P) mineral was named in his honor by

Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger (or Wilhelm von Haidinger, or most often Wilhelm Haidinger) (5 February 179519 March 1871) was an Austrian mineralogist. Early life Haidinger's father was the mineralogist Karl Haidinger (1756–1797), who died w ...

(1775–1871). The mineral is found in meteorites, and is known today as

schreibersite Schreibersite is generally a rare iron nickel phosphide mineral, , though common in iron-nickel meteorites. It has been found on Disko Island in Greenland and Illinois. Another name used for the mineral is rhabdite. It forms tetragonal crystals w ...

. As a zoologist, he was the first to perform a comprehensive

anatomical Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

study of the

olm The olm or proteus (''Proteus anguinus'') is an aquatic salamander in the family Proteidae, the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. In contrast to most amphibians, it is entirely aquatic, eating, sleeping, and br ...

, a cave-dwelling, aquatic

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

. The plant genus ''Schreibersia'' (synonym '' Augusta'', family

Rubiaceae The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...

) was named in his honor by

Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl (23 February 1782, Česká Kamenice (german: Böhmisch Kamnitz) – 22 May 1834, Vienna) was an Austrian botanist, entomologist, geologist, mineralogist, and physician. Biography Johann Emanuel Pohl grew up in ''Politz ...

Biography

He earned his medical doctorate from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1798, but also studied

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

and

zoology 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 ...

at the university. For a brief period of time he assisted his uncle, Joseph Ludwig von Schreibers, with his medical practice in Vienna. As a young man, he also toured museums throughout Europe. In 1802 he was an assistant of natural history and

agricultural science Agricultural science (or agriscience for short) is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Profession ...

s at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

. In 1806 he was appointed director of the Viennese natural history collections (''Naturalienkabinette''), which became his life's work. Schreibers was involved with all aspects of natural sciences, and he embarked upon total organizational overhaul of the museum's natural history collections. During his time as director, the size of the museum's

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

grew from a few scientific books to a collection of over 30,000 volumes. Here, he stored the results of his personal research work, as well as a collection of

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...

s — Schreibers' main interest of study. On 31 October 1848 some parts of the collections of the museum were destroyed by fire during the course of bombardment of Viennese revolutionaries by the Austrian Imperial Army. Schreibers was devastated by the loss, and retired soon afterwards. Fortunately his collection of meteorites was saved from destruction. Schreibers is commemorated in the

scientific names In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of two

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of New World lizards: ''

Cercosaura schreibersii ''Cercosaura schreibersii'', known commonly as Schreibers's many-fingered teiid or the long-tailed little lizard, is a species of lizard in the family Gymnophthalmidae. The species is endemic to South America. Etymology The specific name, '' ...

'' and '' Leiocephalus schreibersii''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Schreibers", p. 238).

References

External links

A biography
Naturhistorisches Museum (Vienna) {{DEFAULTSORT:Schreibers, Carl Franz Anton Ritter von Austrian naturalists Austrian mineralogists 19th-century Austrian zoologists 19th-century Austrian botanists Austrian knights Hungarian nobility Hungarian-German people Austrian people of Hungarian descent Scientists from Bratislava 1775 births 1852 deaths Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences