Lönnberg, Einar, 1865-1942

Axel Johann Einar Lönnberg (24 December 1865 – 21 November 1942) was a Swedish zoologist and conservationist. Lönnberg was born in Stockholm. He was head of the Vertebrate Department of the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (Swedish Natural History Museum) from 1904 to 1933. In 1891 he obtained his PhD from the University of Uppsala, spending the next twelve years as an inspector in the fisheries service. During this time-frame he made scientific trips to Florida (1892 – 1893) and the Caspian Sea (1899). In 1904 he was appointed head of the department of vertebrates at the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet in Stockholm. In 1910 – 1911 he participated in an expedition to East Africa. From 1925 to 1942 he served as prefect of the Kristineberg Marina Forskningsstation (Kristineberg Marine Zoological Station). In regard to his zoological research, his primary focus dealt with mammals, birds and fish, but he also made significant contributions in his studies of reptiles and amphibians. He was the binomial authority of numerous taxa, and has several species named after him, such as Onykia loennbergii (Japanese hooked squid) and a subspecies of the Brown Skua. The Belgian-British zoologist George Albert Boulenger named a small, secretive, venomous, endemic New Guinea elapid snake Apisthocalamus loennbergii in his honour, although this species is now synonymised with Toxicocalamus loriae (Loria's forest snake). In his obituary in the ornithological journal, Ibis, it was written: "that since the days of Linnaeus hardly anyone has known so much about so many branches of zoology as Lönnberg". In 1904 he founded the influential journal of biology, Fauna och Flora. As a conservationist he campaigned for laws protecting waterfowl and reindeer. In 1922 he became an honorary member of the British Ornithologists' Union.