- Israel Aharoni
Israel Aharoni (1882-1946) was a Jewish zoologist in Ottoman
Palestine widely known as the "first Hebrew zoologist." Aharoni discovered 30 unknown species of animals, insects and birds, and is credited with giving them Hebrew names.Aharoni is best known for collecting a litter of
Syrian hamster s on an expedition toAleppo ,Syria . The hamsters were bred as laboratory animals inJerusalem , but some escaped through a hole in the floor. The majority of hamsters inIsrael today are thus said to be descended from this one litter. [ [http://www.ppne.co.uk/index.php?m=show&id=30551 :: Professor Paul's Lives of the Great Naturalists : Israel Aharoni ] ]Biography
Israel Aharoni was born in
Widzi on the Russian/Polish border, and went to school inPrague . He immigrated to Palestine, which was then under Turkish rule, and his early zoological expeditions took place under the protection of the local Sultan, for whom he obtainedbutterfly specimens. Many of his collected specimens can still be viewed at theHebrew University of Jerusalem .yrian hamsters
In 1930, Aharoni set off to look for Syrian hamsters at the request of his colleague
Saul Adler , a parasitologist who was looking for an easily breedable alternative to theChinese hamster for research on the diseaseLeishmaniasis . Syrian hamsters had been discovered and named byGeorge Robert Waterhouse in 1839 but had not been sighted since. Together with aSyria n guide named "Georgius Khalil Tah'an", Aharoni managed to discover anest containing a female and eleven young in theAleppo region. However,cannibalism of one of the litter by the mother, and the subsequent death of the mother, meant that Aharoni had to hand-rear the pups during the journey back. The four that made it were bred successfully and used extensively in laboratories, before being introduced to the pet market in the 1940s.References
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