Wilhelm Peters

Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 – 20 April 1883) was a German naturalist and explorer.

He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he greatly increased the Berlin Museum's herpetological collection to a size comparable to those of Paris and London. Herpetology was Peters' main interest, and he described 122 new genera and 649 species from around the world.

Plants Nymphaea nouchali var. petersiana

Geographic

Peters Bay in NE Greenland was named after him by Carl Koldewey during the 1869–1870 Second German North Polar Expedition.

Works

Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Band 1: Zoologie / Säugethiere . Reimer, Berlin 1852 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Band 2: Zoologie / Vögel . Reimer, Berlin Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Band 3: Zoologie / Amphibien . Reimer, Berlin 1882 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Band 4: Zoologie / Flußfische . Reimer, Berlin 1868 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Band 5: Zoologie / Insecten und Myriopoden . Reimer, Berlin 1862 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Botanik Abth. 1 . Reimer, Berlin 1862 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique. Botanik Abth. 2 . Reimer, Berlin 1864 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf