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Gustav Tornier
Gustav Tornier (Dombrowken (today Dąbrowa Chełmińska, Poland), 9 May 1858 – Berlin, 25 April 1938) was a German zoologist and herpetologist.
Tornier was born in the Kingdom of Prussia as the eldest child of Gottlob Adolf Tornier, a member of the Prussian landed gentry in Dombrowken, a village near Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz) in West Prussia. His father and mother had both died by 1877, leaving the nineteen-year-old Gustav as the master of a house and estate.
The attached commitments kept him from commencing his university studies until the relatively advanced age of twenty-four. Enrolling at the university of Heidelberg in 1882, Tornier took his time, and he did not receive his doctorate for another ten years. In the meantime he wrote a monograph on evolution in support of Wilhelm Roux, Der Kampf mit der Nahrung ("The battle with/for Food", 1884). In the book, he took an uncompromisingly Darwinist stance, and applied the principles of natural selection and adaptation to the structures and functions of individual organisms.
In 1891 he had already accepted a post as an assistant in the zoological museum of the Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University) in Berlin. Initially he occupied himself with preparing anatomical specimens, but from 1893 he also worked in the herpetological department. When its curator, Paul Matschie, took over the mammal collection in 1895, Tornier succeeded him.
In 1902, he became professor of zoology at the university, whilst later also accepting the post of head librarian at the museum (1903), assistant director of the museum (1921), and finally director ad interim of the museum (1922–1923). In addition, he served as a board member of the Berlin Society of Friends of Natural Science (Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin) from 1907 to 1924, and as such was closely involved with organizing the Tendaguru Expedition (1910-1912), still the largest dinosaur excavation expedition in history.
Tornier retired in October 1923, and died in 1938 in Berlin. He was interred in the Luisenfriedhof-III in Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Tornier's research interests focused on amphibians and reptiles, developmental anatomy, and systematics. He became the leading authority on the reptilian and amphibian fauna of German East Africa.
Perhaps unfairly, Tornier's legacy has mainly been determined by his position in the controversy surrounding the posture of the sauropod dinosaur Diplodocus carnegii. Following the 1899 discovery of the animal in Wyoming, it had traditionally been depicted and mounted in an elephant-like stance. However, In 1909, Oliver P. Hay imagined two Diplodocus, being reptiles after all, with splayed lizard-like limbs on the banks of a river. Hay argued that Diplodocus had a sprawling, lizard-like gait with widely splayed legs. Tornier had arrived at the same conclusion and forcefully supported Hay's argument, arguing that the tail couldn't physically have made the curve down to the ground. To solve this issue, he lowered the entire animal.
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Gustav Tornier
Gustav Tornier (Dombrowken (today Dąbrowa Chełmińska, Poland), 9 May 1858 – Berlin, 25 April 1938) was a German zoologist and herpetologist.
Tornier was born in the Kingdom of Prussia as the eldest child of Gottlob Adolf Tornier, a member of the Prussian landed gentry in Dombrowken, a village near Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz) in West Prussia. His father and mother had both died by 1877, leaving the nineteen-year-old Gustav as the master of a house and estate.
The attached commitments kept him from commencing his university studies until the relatively advanced age of twenty-four. Enrolling at the university of Heidelberg in 1882, Tornier took his time, and he did not receive his doctorate for another ten years. In the meantime he wrote a monograph on evolution in support of Wilhelm Roux, Der Kampf mit der Nahrung ("The battle with/for Food", 1884). In the book, he took an uncompromisingly Darwinist stance, and applied the principles of natural selection and adaptation to the structures and functions of individual organisms.
In 1891 he had already accepted a post as an assistant in the zoological museum of the Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University) in Berlin. Initially he occupied himself with preparing anatomical specimens, but from 1893 he also worked in the herpetological department. When its curator, Paul Matschie, took over the mammal collection in 1895, Tornier succeeded him.
In 1902, he became professor of zoology at the university, whilst later also accepting the post of head librarian at the museum (1903), assistant director of the museum (1921), and finally director ad interim of the museum (1922–1923). In addition, he served as a board member of the Berlin Society of Friends of Natural Science (Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin) from 1907 to 1924, and as such was closely involved with organizing the Tendaguru Expedition (1910-1912), still the largest dinosaur excavation expedition in history.
Tornier retired in October 1923, and died in 1938 in Berlin. He was interred in the Luisenfriedhof-III in Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Tornier's research interests focused on amphibians and reptiles, developmental anatomy, and systematics. He became the leading authority on the reptilian and amphibian fauna of German East Africa.
Perhaps unfairly, Tornier's legacy has mainly been determined by his position in the controversy surrounding the posture of the sauropod dinosaur Diplodocus carnegii. Following the 1899 discovery of the animal in Wyoming, it had traditionally been depicted and mounted in an elephant-like stance. However, In 1909, Oliver P. Hay imagined two Diplodocus, being reptiles after all, with splayed lizard-like limbs on the banks of a river. Hay argued that Diplodocus had a sprawling, lizard-like gait with widely splayed legs. Tornier had arrived at the same conclusion and forcefully supported Hay's argument, arguing that the tail couldn't physically have made the curve down to the ground. To solve this issue, he lowered the entire animal.