Contributions to the knowledge of the fresh-water Entomostraca of New Zealand - no-nb digibok 2009041503004-65

Prof Georg Ossian Sars H FRSE (20 April 1837 – 9 April 1927) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

marine and freshwater biologist.

Life

Georg Ossian Sars was born on 20 April 1837 in Kinn, Norway (now part of

Flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

), the son of Pastor

Michael Sars Michael Sars (30 August 1805 – 22 October 1869) was a Norwegian theologian and biologist. Biography Sars was born in Bergen, Norway. He studied natural history and theology at Royal Frederick University from 1823 and completed a cand.theol. ...

and

Maren Sars Maren Cathrine Sars (née Welhaven; 17 August 1811 – 27 December 1898) was a Norwegian socialite. Personal life She was born in Bergen as a daughter of priest Johan Ernst Welhaven (1775–1828) and Else Margrethe Cammermeyer (1785–1853), the ...

; the historian Ernst Sars was his elder brother, and the singer Eva Nansen was his younger sister.
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He grew up in

Manger __NOTOC__ A manger or trough is a rack for fodder, or a structure or feeder used to hold food for animals. The word comes from the Old French ''mangier'' (meaning "to eat"), from Latin ''mandere'' (meaning "to chew"). Mangers are mostly used in ...

, Hordaland, where his father was the local priest. He studied from 1852 to 1854 at Bergen Cathedral School, from 1854 at Christiania Cathedral School, and joined the university at Christiana (now the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

) in 1857. He indulged his interest in natural history while studying medicine; having collected water fleas in local lakes with Wilhelm Lilljeborg's works, he discovered new species, and this resulted in his first scientific publication. Georg Ossian Sars had a good memory and excellent drawing skills, and illustrated some of his father's zoological works. Sars was a founding investigator of ichthyoplankton. In 1864, he was commissioned by the Norwegian government to investigate fisheries around the Norwegian coast. One of his first discoveries was that the

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

of cod are

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

, that is, they inhabit the open water column. He continued to receive the patronage of the government throughout his career. Sars' primary research focus was on

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 can ...

s and their systematics. He described many new species in his career, including in his ''

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

'', ''An Account of the Crustacea of Norway''. For his achievements, Sars was made a Knight of the Order of St. Olav in 1892, and elevated to Knight-Commander in 1911. He was further awarded the Linnean Medal in 1910. Georg Ossian Sars never married, and died on 9 April 1927 in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

. He is remembered in the scientific names of a number of marine

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 ...

s, as well as the journal '' Sarsia'', the Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology and the flagship of the Norwegian research fleet, the ''RV G.O.Sars''.

Publications

* ''An Account of the Crustacea of Norway''. * Sars G. O. (1878)
''Bidrag til kundskaben om norges arktiske fauna. I. Mollusca regonis arcticae Norwegiae. Oversigt over de i norges arktiske region forekommende bløddyr''
Christiania, Brøgger. niversity of Oslo

References

External links

The RV G.O. Sars

Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology

G.O. Sars Open Library

BHL
Online works by G. O. Sars {{DEFAULTSORT:Sars, Georg Ossian 1837 births 1927 deaths 19th-century Norwegian zoologists 20th-century Norwegian zoologists Fisheries scientists Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Marine zoologists Norwegian carcinologists Norwegian marine biologists People educated at Oslo Cathedral School People educated at the Bergen Cathedral School University of Oslo alumni University of Oslo faculty Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala