Henri Jacob Victor Sody (31 August 1892 - 16 January 1959) was a Dutch

agronomist An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.) is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, India, the Philippines, the Uni ...

and mammalogist born in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. He died in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

in 1959. He is recognized for his contributions to the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of Indonesian

mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...

and some birds, as well as for his work regarding the

Javan rhinoceros The Javan rhinoceros (''Rhinoceros sondaicus''), Javan rhino, Sunda rhinoceros or lesser one-horned rhinoceros is a critically endangered member of the genus ''Rhinoceros'', of the rhinoceros family Rhinocerotidae, and one of the five remainin ...

Education and work in the Dutch East Indies

Sody studied at the

Wageningen University and Research Wageningen University & Research (also known as WUR) is a public university, public research university in Wageningen, Netherlands, specializing in life sciences with a focus on agriculture, technical and engineering subjects. It is a globally i ...

in the

Kingdom of the Netherlands The Kingdom of the Netherlands (, ;, , ), commonly known simply as the Netherlands, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united under the monarch of the Netherlands, who functions as head of state. The re ...

. He obtained his certificate of colonial agriculture (') on 21 June 1917. The following year, he traveled to Tjikadjang (now Cikadjang) near Garut, to the east of Priangan, in

West Java West Java (, ) is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten and the country's capital region of Jakarta to t ...

, which at that time was part of the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

(now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

). There, he became a planter on a tea plantation. In 1920, he became a professor in the service of the Dutch government at an agricultural school in

Bogor Bogor City (), or Bogor (, ), is a landlocked city in the West Java, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.

. He returned to Amsterdam in 1926, and married his spouse Frederika Cohen on 7 April 1927. He returned to Java to resume teaching the same year. Upon his return to The Hague in 1933, he was depressed and declared unfit to continue service in the tropics. He was medically cleared to return to work in 1934.

Career as a zoologist

In 1941, he was allowed to stop teaching due to his health problems. He was temporarily assigned to the Bogor Zoology Museum with the mission to classify the members of family

Muridae The Muridae, or murids, are either the largest or second-largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 870 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. ...

, rodents that were implicated in agricultural damage and the propagation of

leptospirosis Leptospirosis is a blood infection caused by the bacterium ''Leptospira'' that can infect humans, dogs, rodents and many other wild and domesticated animals. Signs and symptoms can range from none to mild (headaches, Myalgia, muscle pains, a ...

in Indonesia. Due to the Japanese occupation of Java in 1942, Sody was interred in a camp in Bogor alongside his family, though he was allowed to continue his work. Following the 1945 surrender of Japan, he renewed his contract with the museum at the request of Baas Becking, director of the museum's botanical garden. He returned to Amsterdam in 1947, where he was determined permanently unfit for work in the tropics. He died there on 16 January 1959.

Work

Sody described several

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

and

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

in the family Muridae, including '' Rattus adustus'' and '' Madromys''. He also described the

Togian babirusa The Togian babirusa (''Babyrousa togeanensis''), also known as the Malenge babirusa, is the largest species of babirusa. It is endemic to the Togian Islands of Indonesia, but was considered a subspecies of '' Babyrousa babyrussa'' until 2002. Com ...

. During his lifetime, his private zoological collection was on loan to the

Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie The Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) was a museum on the Rapenburg in Leiden, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1820 by Royal Decree from a merger of several existing collections including Temminck's own ...

; after his death, it was donated to the museum by his widow. He published the major work ''On a collection of Rats from the Indo-Malayan and Indo-Australian regions (with descriptions of 43 new genera, species and subspecies)'' in 1941. In this work, among other notes on the members of Murinus, Sody listed the subspecies of ''

Rattus rattus The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is ...

'' native to those regions.

References

{{Authority control 1959 deaths 1892 births 20th-century Dutch biologists Mammalogists