Émil Goeldi

Émil Goeldi
Émil August Goeldi (var. Göldi, Portuguese var. Emílio Augusto Goeldi) (28 August 1859 – 5 July 1917 in Bern), was a Swiss-Brazilian naturalist and zoologist. He was the father of Oswaldo Goeldi, a noted Brazilian engraver and illustrator.
Biography
Goeldi studied zoology in Jena, Germany with Ernst Haeckel, and in 1884 he was invited by Ladislau de Souza Mello Netto, the influential director of the Brazilian Museu Imperial e Nacional, to work at that institution. Goeldi arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1885 to work in the National Museum (now the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro. In May 1890, he was fired, due to political circumstances related to the proclamation of the republic and the exile of his principal benefactor, Emperor D. Pedro II.
He was then invited by the governor of the state of Pará, Lauro Sodré, to reorganize the Pará Museum of Natural History and Ethnography, in Belém, which had been founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna. He arrived on 9 June 1894 in Belém. In his pioneering work, Goeldi was helped by several other foreign researchers, such as the Swiss botanist Jacques Huber (1867–1914), zoologist Emilie Snethlage (1868–1929), geologists Friedrich Katzer (1861–1925), and Alexander Karl von Kraatz-Koschlau (1867–1900), and Adolpho Ducke (1876–1959), entomologist, ethnographer and botanist.
In 1902, the Museu Paraense de História Natural e Ethnography was renamed in his honour. It is now called the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. In 1905 Émil Goeldi renounced his post, due to ill health, and returned to Switzerland where he died in Bern, in 1917, at age 58. Hüber, then Snethlage and Ducke succeeded him as general directors of the Goeldi Museum in Belém.
Contributions
Goeldi was primarily a zoologist and described many new Brazilian species of birds and mammals. Some of the species which bear his name are:
Goeldi's antbird - Myrmeciza goeldii
Goeldi's marmoset - Callimico goeldii
Goeldi's frog - Flectonotus goeldii
Several other species were named in honour of Émil Goeldi, such as:
Acropyga goeldii, Camponotus goeldii, Azteca goeldii, Pachycondyla goeldii, Crematogaster torosa goeldii, Mycocepurus goeldii, Procryptocerus goeldii, Acanthoponera goeldii, Brachymyrmex goeldii, Dorymyrmex goeldii dubius, Paratrechina goeldii, Megalomyrmex goeldii, Myrmelachista goeldii, Neivamyrmex goeldii, Solenopsis goeldii, Pheidole goeldii and Cephalotes goeldii, all species of South American ants described by Auguste Forel;
Protambulyx goeldii, a moth;
Dubioniscus goeldii, a garden pillbug (isopod);
Metazygia goeldii, a Brazilian species of orb-weaver spider;
Megaelosia goeldii and Fritziana goeldii, frogs;
Trichomycterus goeldii, a pencil catfish;
Cynopotamus goeldii, a Characidae fish;
Goeldi's pimelodid, Duopalatinus goeldii, a Pimelodidae freshwater fish;
Goeldi's hemiodus, Hemiodus goeldii, a Hemiodontidae freshwater fish.
Cheirocerus goeldii, also a catfish;
Simulium goeldii, a blackfly from the Amazon Rainforest;
Philodendron goeldii, a philodendron plant.
In other scientific fields
Goeldi was also recognized as an important early figure in public health and epidemiology in Brazil, because he studied the mechanism of transmission of yellow fever and advocated the importance of fighting the mosquito as the vector of the disease, several years before Oswaldo Cruz did so. His extensive scientific research on the geography, geology, flora, fauna, archaeology, ethnography and socio-economical conditions of the present day region of Amapá was very important to end the Contestado territorial litigation between France and Brazil, ceding the territory to Brazil on 1 December 1900, by the international decision of the court of Bern.
Publications
Goeldi, E. A. (1886). Bericht über zwei ältere, unbekannt gebliebene illustrierte Manuskripte portugiesisch-brasilianischer Naturforscher. I. Die zoologischen Zeichnungen von Alexander Rodriguez Ferreira. II. Die zoologischen Zeichnungen von Arruda da Camara. Zoologische Jahrbücher, Jena, 2, 175-184
Goeldi, E. A. (1892). Zur Orientierung in der Spinnenfauna Brasiliens. Mitteilungen aus dem Osterlande (Neue Folge), 5, 200-248
Goeldi, E. A. (1897). A lenda amazônica do "cauré". Bol. Mus. Paraense, 2, 430-441
Goeldi, E. A. (1897). On the nesting of Cassicus persicus, Cassidrix oryzivora, Gymnomystax melanicterus and Todirostrum maculatum. Ibis, 7(3), 361-370
Goeldi, E. A. (1898 (1897)). A lenda amazônica do "cauré". Bol. Mus. Paraense, 2, 430-441
Goeldi, E. A. (1900). Sobre a nidificação do Cassicus persicus (japim), do Cassidix oryzivora (graúna), do Gymnomystax melanicterus (aritauá) e do Todirostrum maculatum (ferreirinho). Bol. Mus. Para. Hist. Nat. Ethnogr., (Mus. Para.), 3, 203-210
Goeldi, E. A. (1904). Against the destruction of white herons and red ibises on the lower Amazon, especially on the Island of Marajó(2 ed.). Belém: Pará
Geoldi, E. A. (1905). Myrmecologische Mitteilung das Wachsen des Pilzgartens von Atta cephalotes betreffend. Paper presented at the C.r. 6th Congr. Int. Zool., Berne
Goeldi, E. A. (1905). Beobachtungen über die erste Anlage einer neuen Kolonie von Atta cephalotes. Paper presented at the C.r. 6th Congr. Int. Zool., Berne
Goeldi, E. A. (1905). Os mosquitos do Pará. Reunião de quatro trabalhos sobre os mosquitos indígenas, principalmente as espécies que molestam o homem. Mem. Museu E. Goeldi, 4, 1-152
Goeldi, E. A. (1908 (1909)). Microtrogon novo nome genérico proposto para Trogon ramonianus Des Murs. Bol. Mus. Para. Hist. Nat. Ethnogr., (Mus. Pará), 5(1), 92-95
Goeldi, E. A. (1911). Der Ameisenstaat, seine Entstehung und seine Einrichtung, die Organisation der Arbeit und die Naturwunder seines Haushaltes. Leipzig & Berlin: Teubner
References
Struder, T. (1917). Professor Dr. Emil August Goeldi (1859–1917). Verhandlungen der schweizerischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Zürich 1917, 36-59
Papavero, N. (1973). Essays on the history of Neotropical dipterology, with special reference to collectors (1750-1905). São Paulo: Museu de Zoologia, Universidade de São Paulo
Cunha, O. R. (1983). Emílio Augusto Goeldi (1859–1917). Ciência e Cultura, 35(12), 1965–1972
External links
"Göldi, Émil August" (in Portuguese). (Site homepage: "Dicionário Histórico-Biográfico das Ciências da Saúde no Brasil (1832-1930). Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz" at: ).
Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi.
1857 births
1917 deaths
Swiss emigrants to Brazil
Brazilian zoologists
Goldi, Emil
Expatriate academics in Brazil
Brazilian people of Swiss descent
Expatriates in the German Empire