Count Georg Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm zu Münster (german: Georg Graf zu Münster; 17 February 1776 – 23 December 1844) was a German
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 foss ...
.
Biography
Münster was born on 17 February 1776, in
Langelage near
Osnabrück
Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a populat ...
. In 1800, he became a
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
official in the principalities of
Brandenburg-Ansbach
The Principality or Margraviate of (Brandenburg-)Ansbach (german: Fürstentum Ansbach or ) was a principality in the Holy Roman Empire centered on the Franconian city of Ansbach. The ruling Hohenzollern princes of the land were known as margrav ...
and
Brandenburg-Bayreuth
The Principality of Bayreuth (german: Fürstentum Bayreuth) or Margraviate of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (''Markgraftum Brandenburg-Bayreuth'') was an immediate territory of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern dynas ...
. He formed a famous collection of
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s, which was ultimately secured by the
Bavarian Bavarian is the adjective form of the German state of Bavaria, and refers to people of ancestry from Bavaria.
Bavarian may also refer to:
* Bavarii, a Germanic tribe
* Bavarians, a nation and ethnographic group of Germans
* Bavarian, Iran, a villag ...
state, and formed the nucleus of the palaeontological museum at
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
.
Münster assisted
Georg August Goldfuss
Georg August Goldfuss (Goldfuß, 18 April 1782 – 2 October 1848) was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and botanist.
Goldfuss was born at Thurnau near Bayreuth. He was educated at Erlangen, where he graduated PhD in 1804 and became prof ...
in writing his great work, ''Petrefacta Germaniae''.
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
and
Georges Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...
visited him at
Bayreuth, where he donated them part of his collection. He died in Bayreuth on 23 December 1844.
The
Graf-Münster-Gymnasium
The Graf-Münster-Gymnasium is the largest high school in Bayreuth. The school currently has 1400 students and was founded in 1833.
The school was named after Count (Graf) Georg zu Münster (1776–1844), a local paleontologist
Paleontology ...
in Bayreuth was named after him.
Notes
References
*
Further reading
*
*
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100117150328/http://www.barnick.de/bt/wer/grafmuenster.htm
* http://did.mat.uni-bayreuth.de/~gmg/info/muenster/muenster.html
* http://fossilien-news.blog.de/?tag=georg-graf-zu-m%FCnster
1776 births
1844 deaths
Counts of Germany
German paleontologists
Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Scientists from Osnabrück
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