Peter Ouwens

Pieter Antonie Ouwens  (14 February 1849, Amsterdam – 5 March 1922, Buitenzorg) was a Dutch scientist. He was Director of the Java Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens. He is best known for writing the first formal description of the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) in 1912.

Family
Ouwens was the child of Pieter Anthonis Ouwens, accountant in Amsterdam, and Caroline Reiniera Nagels. He studied at the Royal Military Academy in Breda from 1867. In 1871, he became lieutenant at the Infantry in the Dutch East Indies. In 1883, he was promoted to captain. In January 1879 he married Johanna Vosmaer at Banda Aceh. They divorced a month after the birth of their only child in 1882 in Salatiga. Ouwens then married Jeanne Dikkers in December 1883 in Purworejo."Ouwens, Pieter Antonie" genealogy  at ouwens.orgGenealogie van het geslacht Ouwens in "Algemeen Nederlands Familieblad", Volume 5, The Hague, 1888, page 75 He married again in 1902, with Anna Josephina Soesman.Pieter Antonie Ouwens in :nl:De Nederlandse Leeuw, Volumes 88-93, :nl:Koninklijk Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Geslacht- en Wapenkunde, 1971, page 512

Komodo dragon
Ouwens became curator of the Zoological Museum in Buitenzorg. (Buitenzorg is now called Bogor). Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek was the first European to see Komodo dragons. Hensbroek sent a photo and a skin of a Komodo dragon to Ouwens. He then sent a collector to Komodo, who returned to Java with two adults and a young lizard.Varanus komodoensis . Mampam.com (2007-08-24). Retrieved on 2013-04-30. Ouwens named the species Varanus komodoensis in a publication of 1912. Ouwens became Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau and died in Buitenzorg in 1922.

References

Category:1849 births
Category:1922 deaths
Category:Dutch military people
Category:Dutch biologists
Category:People from Amsterdam
Category:Zoologists