He also was a dedicated teacher of the comparative method. The teacher of anatomy, Ferdinand Hochstetter, was a brilliant comparative anatomist and embryologist. However, I obeyed my father who wanted me to study medicine. On finishing high school, I was still obsessed with evolution and wanted to study zoology and paleontology. In other words, Bernhard discovered, at 17, that “action specific potentiality” can be “dammed up” as well as exhausted. However, after Bernhard had presented the fish with a mirror causing it to fight its image to exhaustion, the fish would, immediately afterwards, be ready to court a female. The most important discovery was made by Bernhard Hellmann while breeding the aggressive Cichlid Geophagus: a male that had been isolated for some time, would kill any conspecific at sight, irrespective of sex. At the time, this was not yet generally accepted by science.
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We concluded that this group was derived from Euphyllopod ancestors by becoming neotenic. Later, studying the larval development of the brine shrimp, we discovered the ressemblance between the Euphyllopod larva and adult Cladocera, both in respect to movement and to structure. We concentrated on this group during the ontogenetic phase of collecting through which apparently every true zoologist must pass, repeating the history of his science. We both were attracted by Crustacea, particularly by Cladocera. Fishing for Daphnia and other “live food” for our fishes, we discovered the richness of all that lives in a pond. Bernhard and I were first drawn together by both being aquarists. Freedom of thought was, and to a certain extent still is, characteristic of Austria. Heberdey, a Benedictine monk, freely taught us Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. I then decided to become a paleontologist.Īt school, I met one important teacher, Philip Heberdey, and one important friend, Bernhard Hellmann. Was it, therefore, an insect? Evolution gave me the answer: if reptiles, via the Archaeopteryx, could become birds, annelid worms, so I deduced, could develop into insects. The notches between the worm’s metameres clearly were of the same nature. My father had explained that the word “insect” was derived from the notches, the “incisions” between the segments. Even before that I had struggled with the problem whether or not an earthworm was in insect. When I was about ten, I discovered evolution by reading a book by Wilhelm Bölsche and seeing a picture of Archaeopteryx. At the same time my interest became irreversibly fixated on water fowl, and I became an expert on their behaviour even as a child. From a neighbour, I got a one day old duckling and found, to my intense joy, that it transferred its following response to my person. In the process of getting some, I discovered imprinting and was imprinted myself. From then on, I yearned to become a wild goose and, on realizing that this was impossible, I desperately wanted to have one and, when this also proved impossible, I settled for having domestic ducks. This success alone might have sufficed to determine my further career however, another important factor came in: Selma Lagerlöf‘s Nils Holgersson was read to me – I could not yet read at that time. When my father brought me, from a walk in the Vienna Woods, a spotted salamander, with the injunction to liberate it after 5 days, my luck was in: the salamander gave birth to 44 larvae of which we, that is to say Resi, reared 12 to metamorphosis.
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She possessed a “green thumb” for rearing animals.
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My nurse, Resi Führinger, was the daughter of an old patrician peasant family. They were supremely tolerant of my inordinate love for animals. I grew up in the large house and the larger garden of my parents in Altenberg. I consider early childhood events as most essential to a man’s scientific and philosophical development. Share via Email: Konrad Lorenz – Biographical Share this content via Email.Share on LinkedIn: Konrad Lorenz – Biographical Share this content on LinkedIn.Tweet: Konrad Lorenz – Biographical Share this content on Twitter.Share on Facebook: Konrad Lorenz – Biographical Share this content on Facebook.