# Juan Gundlach

Juan Cristóbal Gundlach (July 17, 1810 - March 14, 1896) was a German-Cuban naturalist and taxonomist.

## Biography

Gundlach graduated from Marburg University, where his father was professor of physics, as Doctor of Philosophy in 1837. In 1839, he left Europe to make collections on the Caribbean island of Cuba. During a short trip to Puerto Rico, at the request of Jesuit fathers to offer assistance in the creation of a zoological collection in 1868, when revolutionary activities were beginning in Cuba as well as Puerto Rico, he met with don Tomás Blanco, according to naturalist Dr. Agustín Stahl. A friend of Carl Wilhelm Leopold Krug, who served as German Vice Consul in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico and who paid for some of Gundlach's travels, he visited Puerto Rico in 1873, leaving Havana on 4 June 1873 on the ship Manuela, arriving in Mayagüez on 13 June and staying in Puerto Rico for approximately six months. During that trip, Gundlach contributed to the founding of the Civil Institute for Secondary Learning or "Instituto Civil de Segunda Enseñanza". This institute was closed several months later, in keeping with the Spanish government's policy expressed to the bishops of Santiago de Cuba and of San Juan of limiting the opportunities for higher learning on both islands. He subsequently travelled from Havana to Puerto Rico's west coast aboard the "Marsella" in September 1875. He remained in Puerto Rico for approximately one year; while he was there, he changed his name from Johannes Christoph to its Spanish equivalent, Juan Cristóbal. He wrote Contribucion á la Erpetologia Cubana (1880) and Contribucion á la entomologia Cubana in 4 volumes (1881–1884). He also wrote the first major work on the birds of Cuba, Ornitología Cubana, and his name is commemorated in the scientific names of over sixty species. His collections passed into the care of the Museo Poey in Havana, named after Cuban intellectual Dr. Felipe Poey y Aloy (1799–1891), upon his death in 1896.

## Legacy

In 1986, on the 90th anniversary of his death, Cuba issued a series of postal stamps commemorating Gundlach.
His visits to Puerto Rico were considered so important to the development of the study of natural sciences in Puerto Rico that he is considered "the Father of Natural Sciences in Puerto Rico" and his portrait, painted by Andrés Garcés, hangs in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. To honor him, Dr. Agustín Stahl named a species of cupey tree in his honor as Clusia gundlachi. The Puerto Rico Academy of Arts and Sciences on June 26, 2008, awarded recognitions that carry Gundlach's name to 25 prominent scientists in Puerto Rico.

### Species, genera and subspecies named in honor of Gundlach

* Accipiter gundlachii – Gundlach's hawk
* Acmaeodera gundlachi – a buprestid beetle
* Anolis gundlachi – a Puerto Rican lizard
* Anolis juangundlachi – a Cuban lizard
* Buteogallus gundlachii - Cuban black hawk
* Calisto gundlachi - endemic butterfly of Cuba
* Camponotus gundlachi – a Cuban carpenter ant
* Capromys pilorides gundlachianus - subspecies of Cuban hutia
* Cazierus gundlachii – a Cuban scorpion
* Chiomara gundlachi – butterfly of the family Hesperiidae
* Chlaenius gundlachi - a beetle
* Chordeiles gundlachii – Antillean nighthawk
* Clusia gundlachi – a vine endemic to Puerto Rico
* Coccothrinax gundlachii - endemic Cuban palm
* Colaptes auratus gundlachi - subspecies of northern flicker from Grand Cayman
* Compsodrillia gundlachi - Caribbean sea snail
* Eleutherodactylus gundlachi – Gundlach's robber frog
* Gundlachia – a genus of land snails
* Gundlachia – a genus of plants
* Guppya gundlachi - a land snail
* Lasioglossum (Dialictus) gundlachii – a halictid bee
* Mimus gundlachii - Bahama mockingbird
* Mysateles prehensilis gundlachi - subspecies of prehensile-tailed hutia in Cuba
* Nephronaias gundlachii – a land snail
* Neolema gundlachiana – a leaf beetle
* Palinurellus gundlachi – Caribbean furry lobster
* Parides gundlachianus –Cuban cattleheart, butterfly of the family Papilionidae
* Peltophryne gundlachi – Gundlach's Caribbean toad
* Setophaga petechia gundlachi – subspecies of yellow warbler (petechia group)
* Strumigenys gundlachi – a Neotropical dacetine ant
* Temnothorax gundlachi – a Cuban ant
* Tolumnia gundlachii - a Caribbean orchid
* Unio gundlachi – a freshwater bivalve
* Vireo gundlachii – Cuban vireo
* Xylophanes gundlachii - Cuban moth (Sphingidae)