Heinrich Kuhl

Heinrich Kuhl (September 17, 1797 - September 14, 1821) was a German naturalist and zoologist.

Kuhl was born in Hanau. He became assistant to Coenraad Jacob Temminck at Leiden museum. In 1817 he published a monograph on bats and in 1819 he published "Conspectus psittacorum". He also published the first monograph on the petrels, and a list of all the birds illustrated in Daubenton's "Planches Enluminees".

In 1820 he travelled to Java, then part of the colonial Netherlands East Indies, with his friend Johan Coenraad van Hasselt (1797 - 1823) to study the animals of the island, sending back to the museum at Leiden 200 skeletons, 200 mammal skins of 65 species, 2000 bird skins, 1400 fish, 300 reptiles and amphibians, and many insects and crustaceans.

In 1821 he died in Buitenzorg (now Bogor) of a liver infection brought on by the climate and overexertion. He had been less than a year in Java. Johan van Hasselt continued his work collecting specimens, but died two years later.

Kuhl's Pipistrelle is named in his honour.

References

*Walters, Michael. 2003. "A Concise History of Ornithology". New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09073-0