Georg Ossian Sars

Georg Ossian Sars HFRSE (20 April 1837 – 9 April 1927) was a Norwegian marine and freshwater biologist. He was a professor of zoology at the University of Oslo from 1874 to 1918. He was a pioneer of Norwegian fisheries research and was involved in establishing hatcheries for marine fish. He wrote a major work on the crustacea of Norway. The Ossian Sars Nature Reserve was named after him.

Life

Georg Ossian Sars was born on 20 April 1837 in Kinn, Norway (now part of Kinn Municipality), the son of Pastor Michael Sars and Maren Sars; the historian Ernst Sars was his elder brother, and the singer and women's skiing pioneer Eva Nansen was his younger sister. He grew up in Manger Municipality in Hordaland, where his father was the local priest. Sars' primary research focus was on crustaceans and their systematics. In 1876-78 he collaborated with Henrik Mohn and conducted collections aboard the steamship Vøringen. He also worked on the collections made by the Challenger expedition. He described many new species in his career, including in his magnum opus, An Account of the Crustacea of Norway. He was further awarded the Linnean Medal in 1910.

Georg Ossian Sars never married, and died on 9 April 1927 in Oslo. He is remembered in the scientific names of a number of marine invertebrates, as well as the journal Sarsia, the Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology and the flagship of the Norwegian research fleet, the RV G.O.Sars.

Publications An Account of the Crustacea of Norway. Sars G. O. (1878). Bidrag til kundskaben om norges arktiske fauna. I. Mollusca regonis arcticae Norwegiae. Oversigt over de i norges arktiske region forekommende bløddyr. Christiania, Brøgger. [University of Oslo].