Hermann Burmeister

Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister (15 January 1807 to 2 May 1892), also known as Carlos Germán Conrado Burmeister, was a German Argentine zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, botanist and coleopterologist. Born in Stralsund, he studied medicine at Greifswald and Halle and took doctorates in medicine and philosophy in 1829. He was professor of zoology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1837 to 1861, headed the museum there and published the Handbuch der Entomologie between 1832 and 1855. In 1848 he sat in the national assembly as deputy for Halle, he travelled to Brazil from 1850 to 1852 with support from Alexander von Humboldt, and he visited Argentina from 1857 to 1860. In 1861 he moved to Argentina, where he founded the Institute at the Museo Nacional in Buenos Aires, headed the Academy of Sciences in Córdoba, took an interest in paleontology and the protection of fossils, and described many new species of amphibians and reptiles. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1856 and died in 1892 after a fall at the museum, with a state funeral attended by the president of Argentina.