Johann Andreas Wagner (21 March 1797 – 17 December 1861) was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and archaeologist who wrote several important works on palaeontology.

Johann Andreas Wagner
Born21 March 1797 Edit this on Wikidata
Nuremberg Edit this on Wikidata
Died17 December 1861 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 64)
Occupation
Academic career
FieldsPaleontology, zoology, archaeology, natural science Edit this on Wikidata
Hipparion from Pikermi, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris.
Pikermi fossil of a hyena tooth Adcrocuta eximia, showing the characteristic craquelure, Teylers Museum.

Career

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Wagner was a professor at the University of Munich, and curator of the Zoologische Staatssammlung (State Zoology Collection). He was the author of Die Geographische Verbreitung der Säugethiere Dargestellt (1844–46).

Wagner was a Christian creationist.[1]

Pikermi

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In his travels to the fossil beds of Pikermi, Wagner discovered and described fossil remains of mastodon, Dinotherium, Hipparion, two species of giraffe, antelope and others.[2][3] His collaboration with Johannes Roth on these fossils became a major textbook in palaeontology, known as "Roth & Wagner", in which the "bones were much broken, and no complete skeleton was found with all the parts united".[4][5]

Legacy

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Wagner is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of South American snake, Diaphorolepis wagneri.[6]

Bibliography

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References

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  1. ^ Rupke, Nicolaas A. (2005). Neither Creation nor Evolution: The Third Way in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Thinking about the Origin of Species. Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology 10: 160.
  2. ^ Upper Miocene Formations of Greece at Pikermi Archived 2012-06-03 at the Wayback Machine on Geology.com
  3. ^ Neue Beiträge zur Kenntniss der fossilen Säugthier-Überreste von Pikermi on Google books, by Wagner, Munich, 1857
  4. ^ Die fossilen Knochenüberreste von Pikermi in Griechenland on Google books, by Johannes Rudolf Roth and Johann Andreas Wagner, Munich, 1854
  5. ^ "bones were much broken" in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Volume 6, 1857, page 182
  6. ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Wagner, J.A.", p. 278).