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Karl Schulze-Hagen

Frühe schweizerische Forschungen zu Anatomie und Nahrungsbiologie des Bartgeiers Gypaetus barbatus

2024

121

48–63

Key words
(von 1994 bis 2006 vergeben)

Anatomie; Nahrungsbiologie; Skleralring; Knochendigestion; Geschichte der Ornithologie; Mythen

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(wissenschaftlich)

Gypaetus barbatus

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(deutsch)

Bartgeier

deutsch

Abhandlung

Early Swiss studies on anatomy and feeding biology of the Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus. – Despite its imposing size, the Bearded Vulture was one of the last poorly known birds in Europe until well into the 19th century. For example, Johann Friedrich Naumann obtained the essential species information for his handbook on birds («Naturgeschichte der Vögel») from Switzerland, namely from the Zurich zoologist Heinrich Rudolf Schinz. However, Schinz was not the only one who had observed Bearded Vultures in the field and studied them at home in the late 18th and early 19th century. Before him, several scientists, beginning with Konrad Gessner in 1555, had already investigated the «Vulture Eagle». Their studies reflect the early flowering of Swiss Alpine ornithology, which was the result not only of the country’s geographical location, but also due to the high level of early natural sciences in Switzerland. Unlike today, field studies were hardly possible in remote Alpine regions before about 1830. Birds killed by hunters were often dissected before being stuffed, and captive birds were studied in enclosures. It is in these two areas that the ornithological achievements of the time have been made. Johann Rudolf Steinmüller, Schinz and further colleagues had dissected a number of Bearded Vultures, describing their entire morphology, particularly the species-specific red scleral ring and the bone digestion. In contrast, they had to extract information on the bird’s habits in the field, especially on feeding, from the tellings of hunters and mountaineers. While the anatomical studies and behavioural observations in enclosures impress with their accuracy and objectivity, the second-hand information appears, in retrospect, to be unsubstantiated. The «Lammergeier as a terrible raptor» that even fetches children had still found credence until the early 20th century. No wonder the Bearded Vulture as a «malign animal» was exterminated in Switzerland by the end of the 19th century. The precise and perceptive anatomical findings of Steinmüller and Schinz on bone digestion, cited here, remained largely unnoticed for over 200 years and have only recently been strikingly confirmed. For this reason alone, the early Bearded Vulture experts Daniel Sprüngli, J. H. Steinmüller and H. R. Schinz must be regarded as pioneers.