Coenraad Jacob Temminck (31 March 1778 – 30 January 1858) was a Dutch patrician, zoologist and museum director.

Biography

Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. From his father, Jacob Temminck, who was treasurer of the Dutch East India Company with links to numerous travellers and collectors, he inherited a large collection of bird specimens. His father was a good friend of Francois Levaillant who also guided Coenraad. Temminck's Manuel d'ornithologie, ou Tableau systématique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe (1815) was the standard work on European birds for many years. He was also the author of Histoire naturelle générale des Pigeons et des Gallinacées (1813–1817), illustrated by Pauline Knip. He wrote Nouveau Recueil de Planches coloriées d'Oiseaux (1820–1839), and contributed to the mammalian sections of Philipp Franz von Siebold's Fauna japonica (1844–1850). Temminck was the first director of the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden from 1820 until now. In 1824, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. In 1831, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1836 he became member of the Royal Institute, predecessor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Works

Temminck, in collaboration with Heinrich Kuhl, is the author of descriptions of parrots, including the rosella Platycercus icterotis. A tailless mutant of a junglefowl Gallus lafayettii was described in 1807 by Temminck, which in 1868 the English naturalist Charles Darwin incorrectly denied existed. Another junglefowl, described in 1813 by Temminck as Gallus giganteus was, he believed, one of six wild ancestral species of domestic fowl; Darwin, however, demonstrated that the latter has a single (monophyletic) origin.

Species named after Temminck

A large number of animals were named for Temminck in the 19th century. Among those still in use are:

Taxon described by him