Erna Mohr

{{Short description|German zoologist (1894–1968)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox scientist | honorific_prefix = | name = Erna Mohr | honorific_suffix = | image = Erna Mohr.jpg | alt = Outdoor portrait of Mohr in a white lab coat, holding a dachshund in one arm | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date |1894|07|11}} | birth_place = [[Hamburg]], [[German Empire]] | death_date = {{death date and age |1968|09|10 |1894|07|11}} | death_place = Hamburg, [[West Germany]] | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | fields ={{hlist|[[Mammalogy]]|[[Ichthyology]]}} | workplaces = [[Zoological Museum Hamburg]] | patrons = | education = | alma_mater = | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | signature =  | footnotes = }}

'''Erna W. Mohr''' (July 11, 1894{{spnd}}September 10, 1968) was a German zoologist who made contributions to [[ichthyology]] and [[mammalogy]]. Mohr was long associated with the [[Zoological Museum Hamburg]], where she was successively head of the Fish Biology Department, Department of Higher Vertebrates, and Curator of the Vertebrate Department. She was a member of the [[Academy of Sciences Leopoldina]] and held an honorary doctorate from the [[Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München]].<ref name="Brown1994">{{cite journal|last=Brown|first=Patricia Stocking|year=1994|title= Early women ichthyologists|journal=Environmental Biology of Fishes|volume= 41|issue=1–4 |pages= 9–30|url=https://swfsc.noaa.gov/uploadedFiles/Education/Women%20in%20Ichthyology.pdf|doi=10.1007/bf02197830|bibcode=1994EnvBF..41....9S |s2cid=189875126 }}</ref><ref name="Hubbs1969">{{cite journal|last1=Hubbs|first1=Carl L.|title=Erna Mohr July 11, 1894–September 10, 1968|journal=Copeia|date=1969|volume=1969|issue=3|page=646|jstor=1441963}}</ref>

Mohr was born in [[Hamburg]], the daughter of a school teacher, and aside from some time in [[Schleswig-Holstein]] lived for most of her life in Hamburg. Between 1914 and 1934 she taught high school while volunteering at the [[Zoological Museum Hamburg]] and also published scholarly and popular scientific articles. At the Zoological Museum she began working with [[Ernst Ehrenbaum]] on [[age determination in fish]]es, where she is credited to have been the first to use [[ctenoid scale]]s to estimate age.<ref name="Brown1994"/> She later worked with [[Georg Duncker]] on fish taxonomy, including works on the [[viviparous halfbeak]]s (Zenarchopteridae), [[sand lance]]s (Ammodytidae) and [[Centriscidae|shrimpfish]] (Centriscidae). After Duncker's retirement in 1934, Mohr became head of the Fish Biology department, and in 1936 became head of the Department of Higher Vertebrates. She became Curator of the Vertebrate Department in 1946.<ref name="Brown1994"/>

She also worked extensively with mammals, publishing on rodents, seals, hoofed-mammals, and other groups.<ref name="ASM">{{cite book|title=Seventy-five Years of Mammalogy, 1919-1994|last1=Taylor|first1=J. Mary|last2=Schlitter|first2=Duane A.|date=1994|publisher=American Society of Mammalogists|isbn=0935868739|editor1-last=Birney|editor1-first=Elmer C.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/seventyfiveyears00birn/page/71 71–109]|chapter=Awardees|editor2-last=Choate|editor2-first=Jerry R.|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/seventyfiveyears00birn#page/88/mode/2up|url=https://archive.org/details/seventyfiveyears00birn/page/71}}</ref> She became a member of the [[American Society of Mammalogists]] in 1928,<ref name="Kaufman et al 1996">{{cite journal|last1=Kaufman|first1=Dawn M.|last2=Kaufman|first2=Donald W.|last3=Kaufman|first3=Glennis A.|date=1996|title=Women in the Early Years of the American Society of Mammalogists (1919-1949)|journal=Journal of Mammalogy|volume=77|issue=3|pages=642|doi=10.2307/1382670|jstor=1382670 |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{efn|Mohr's membership was temporarily dropped in the late 1940s due to her inability to send membership dues during and following World War II.<ref name="Kaufman et al 1996"/>}} and in 1959 she wrote a monograph on the endangered [[Przewalski's horse]], a "pre-emininet compendium... that can never be surpassed for its firsthand accounts of the early history of the species".<ref name="BoydHoupt1994">{{cite book|author1=Lee Boyd|author2=Katherine A. Houpt|title=Przewalski's Horse: The History and Biology of an Endangered Species|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bvg99Qq54nUC&pg=PA61|year=1994|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-1889-5|page=2}}</ref> She compiled studbooks for the Przewalski's horse and [[European bison]], and was active in reintroduction efforts for the latter.<ref name="KrasińskaKrasiński2013">{{cite book|author1=Małgorzata Krasińska|author2=Zbigniew Krasiński|title=European Bison: The Nature Monograph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nR1GAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|date=June 19, 2013|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-3-642-36555-3|pages=16–}}</ref><ref name="Corporation2001">{{cite book|chapter=Bison|title=Endangered Wildlife and Plants of the World|volume=II|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lz9OvdnTGzoC&pg=PA153|year=2001|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0-7614-7196-7|pages=153–154}}</ref>

Mohr produced over 400 publications during her career. She received an honorary doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1950.<ref name="Brown1994" /> In 1966 she was elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mammalogists, the Society's most esteemed honor, and as of 1996 was the only woman to have been so rewarded.<ref name="Kaufman et al 1996" /><ref name="ASM" />

Mohr died in Hamburg in 1968. She was buried in the [[Ohlsdorf Cemetery]]'s Garden of Women, with a statue of a [[hutia]] (a large rodent) marking her grave.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}

[[File:Garten-der-frauen-mohr-baumratte (cropped).JPG|thumb|A [[hutia]] statue stands beside Mohr's grave in [[Ohlsdorf Cemetery]].]] __NOTOC__

==Legacy==

A species of fossil salamander (''Grippiella mohrae'')<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Martín|first1=C.|last2=Alonso-Zarazaga|first2=M. A.|last3=Sanchiz|first3=B.|title=Nomenclatural notes on living and fossil amphibians|journal=Graellsia|date=2012|volume=68|issue=1|pages=159|doi=10.3989/graellsia.2012.v68.056|url=http://graellsia.revistas.csic.es/index.php/graellsia/article/viewFile/436/437|doi-access=free}}</ref> and bat mite (''Ichoronyssus mohrae'')<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Vitzthum|first1=H. Graf|title=Neue parasitische Fledermausmilben aus Venezuela|journal=Zeitschrift für Parasitenkunde|date=1931|volume=4|issue=1|pages=1–47|doi=10.1007/BF02122048|s2cid=31991057 }}</ref> were named after Mohr. In 1984, on what would have been her 90th birthday, a street in [[Neuallermöhe]], Hamburg, was named ''Erna Mohr Kehre'' ("Erna Mohr Turn").<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bake|first1=Rita|contribution=Erna-Mohr-Kehre|title=Wer steckt dahinter? Nach frauen benannte Strassen, Plätze und Brücken in Hamburg|date=2005|publisher=Landeszentrale für politische Bildung|location=Hamburg|isbn=3-929728-29-X|edition=4th|url=http://epub.sub.uni-hamburg.de/epub/volltexte/2007/52/pdf/wer_steckt_dahinter_pdf_960kbpropertysource.pdf|language=de}}</ref>

Starting from the German ''Enzyklopädie der Tiere'' ("Encyclopedia of the animals") edited by Wilhelm Eigener and publisher by [[Westermann Verlag]] in 1971 for its first edition, Mohr wrote the mammal's section of the 2 Volumes ''Enciclopedia degli Animali'' (Capitol editions, [[Bologna]], 1980).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=WgfkAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Enciclopedia+degli+animali%22%2Bcapitol%2Bbologna Italian Books and Periodicals, Vol. 23, dency of the Council of Ministers, Information and Copyright Services, 1980, 1980], a book coauthored with Dr. [[Joachim Steinbacher]] (ornithology section), Konrad Klemmer (reptiles), Dr. W. Ladiges (fishes), Dr. Wolfgang Dierl (insects), Dr. Max Seilnik (spiders), and the Italian supervision of Dr. Paolo Boldreghini and Mario Spagnesi</ref>

==Notes== {{notelist}}

==See also== * [[:Category:Taxa named by Erna Mohr]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *{{commons category-inline|Erna Mohr}} *[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/136087 Works by Erna Mohr] at the [[Biodiversity Heritage Library]] *[https://wcsarchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/archival_objects/25148 Erna Mohr files, circa 1939-1940] at the [[Wildlife Conservation Society]] Archives

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohr, Erna}} [[Category:1894 births]] [[Category:1968 deaths]] [[Category:German ichthyologists]] [[Category:German mammalogists]] [[Category:20th-century German women scientists]] [[Category:Women ichthyologists]] [[Category:Scientists from Hamburg]] [[Category:20th-century German zoologists]] [[Category:German curators]] [[Category:Women mammalogists]] [[Category:German women curators]]