Egbert Cornelis Nicolaas van Hoepen (10 November 1884 – 2 May 1966) was a Dutch-born South African

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Biography

Born at

Vlissingen Vlissingen (; zea, label=Zeelandic, Vlissienge), historically known in English as Flushing, is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic l ...

, around the age of six he moved with his parents to the

South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...

. When British forces occupied

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

in 1900 he was deported to the Netherlands, where he took classes and qualified as a mining engineer at the technical university in Delft. He later received his doctorate with a thesis on the structure of the

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

strata of

Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...

(1910). He then returned to South Africa, where from 1910 to 1921, he worked as a paleontologist at the

Transvaal Museum The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City Ha ...

. Within this time period, he focused his attention on fossil reptiles of the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

. From 1922 to 1950 he served as director of National Museum in

Bloemfontein Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State (province), Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legisla ...

. He is credited with collecting thousands of

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

fossils from the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

strata of Zululand.Van Hoepen, Dr Egbert Cornelis Nicolaas
S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science He died at

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

Taxa

He is the

taxonomic authority In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

of numerous fossil taxa, such as the

therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more ...

family

Pylaecephalidae Pylaecephalidae is a family of dicynodont therapsids that includes ''Diictodon'', '' Robertia'', and '' Prosictodon'' from the Permian of South Africa. Pylaecephalids were small burrowing dicynodonts with long tusks. The family was first named i ...

and the

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

family

Megatrigoniidae '' Megatrigoniidae '' is an extinct family of fossil saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the subclass Palaeoheterodonta. This family of bivalves is known in the fossil record from the Jurassic period, Tithonian age, to the Cretaceous peri ...

. He also described the extinct reptile genera ''

Pedeticosaurus ''Pedeticosaurus'' is an extinct genus of crocodylomorph from the Clarens Formation (Early Jurassic) of South Africa. The type species ''Pedeticosaurus leviseuri'' was named by Egbert Cornelis Nicolaas van Hoepen in 1915 on the basis of a mold of ...

'' and '' Eucnemesaurus'',A Revision of the Parainfraclass Archosauria Cope, 1869
/ref> as well as the

dicynodont Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivorous animals with a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, typicall ...

genus ''

Sintocephalus ''Sintocephalus'' is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsid from the Late Permian of South Africa. Fossils are known from the ''Cistecephalus'' Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group. The type species of ''Sintocephalus'', ''S. alticeps'', was ...

''. In 1932 he circumscribed both '' Kolpochoerus'', a prehistoric pig genus, and ''

Megalotragus ''Megalotragus'' was a genus of very large extinct African alcelaphines that occurred from the Pliocene to early Holocene.Thackeray, John Francis. (2015). Faunal Remains from Holocene Deposits, Excavation 1, Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Africa ...

'', an extinct antelope genus.Megalotragus van Hoepen, 1932
GBIF Taxa with the specific epithet of ''vanhoepeni'' commemorate his name.

Published works

He was the author of around 80 scientific writings, publishing works in the fields of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

as well as in

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

. * "Contributions to the knowledge of the reptiles of the Karroo Formation. 6. Further dinosaurian material in the Transvaal Museum", ''Annals of the Transvaal Museum'' 7(2): 93-141.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoepen, Egbert Cornelis Nicolaas van 1884 births 1966 deaths People from Vlissingen Dutch paleontologists Delft University of Technology alumni Emigrants from the Netherlands to the South African Republic