NEHRING, ALFRED

(b. Gandersheim, Germany, 29 January 1845; d. Berlin, Germany, 29 September 1904)

paleontology, zoology.

After graduating from the Gymnasium, Nehring studied natural sciences, especially zoology, from 1863 to 1867 at the universities of Göttingen and Halle, receiving his doctorate from Halle in 1867. He then taught biology at the Gymnasiums in Wesel and Wolfenbüttel. In 1881, on the strength of his scientific achievements, he was appointed professor of zoology at the Agricultural College in Berlin, where he later also became curator of the zoological collections. He held these posts until his death. Nehring never recovered from the psychological effects of a gas explosion in 1902 under the museum of the Agricultural College; this accident, which destroyed or damaged one portion of the collections and disrupted another, also weakened his health during his last years.

Nehring’s scientific works covered Recent, postglacial, and Pleistocene vertebrates, particularly domestic animals; their domestication; their history; their relations in the wild; and the zoology of untamed game animals. His publications on Pleistocene mammals are of major importance. Nehring’s works on Recent zoology concern the distribution of Mus rattus and Mus decumanus; canine teeth in horses, wild swine, Saiga antelopes, and various species of deer; the skeleton and systematic position of the seal Halichoerus; dog skulls with abnormal dentition; the craniological differences between the lion and the tiger; the origin, descent, and hybridizations of the South American rodent Cavia cobaya; the distribution and agricultural importance of the hamster Cricetus cricetus in Germany; various genera and species of Cricetidae; the origin of the duck Anas moschata; the distribution of the snake Coronella austriaca and of the freshwater fish Pelecus; and the presence of the snail Helix candicans in Pomerania.

Nehring’s investigations of postglacial and domesticated animals concerned dwarf swine from Pomerania; primitive domesticated dogs near Berlin; the influence of domestication on the size of an animal’s body; lake-dwelling fauna of East Prussia; the remains of Bos primigenius and Alces in the regions around Berlin; Herberstain’s woodcuts (1557) of Bison priscus and Bos primigenius; Inca dogs from Peru; ancient Egyptian animal mummies; and the descent of domestic sheep.

The largest portion of Nehring’s work consists of writings on Pleistocene mammals and birds, especially small mammals. In them he treated the morphology, taxonomy, and biogeographic distribution of many Pleistocene species; he also compared them in these respects with living representatives and relatives. He covered such rodents as lemmings and other Arvicolidae, including the genus Dolomys, which Nehring himself established, and members of other rodent families. He also dealt with the dog and cat families; the bear; several species of deer, ox, goat, sheep, and antelope; Bison priscus, camels, wild asses, horses, and the mammoth; and such birds as Tetrao (wood grouse), Lyrurus (black grouse), Lagopus (ptarmigan), Nyctea scandiaca (snowy owl), and Scolopax rusticola (woodcock). Most of Nehring’s material was of German origin; but it also came from Europe (as far east as Russia and as far west as Portugal and England), Lebanon, and China.

Besides these individual descriptions Nehring wrote many accounts of the Pleistocene fauna: a survey of twenty-four central European Quaternary local faunas; the Quaternary local faunas of Thiede and Westeregeln near Brunswick; micromammals from the caves of Upper Franconia; diluvial vertebrates from Pösneck, Thuringia; the local fauna of a Pleistocene cave near Schaffhausen, Switzerland; diluvial animal remains from the Seveckenberg near Quedlinburg; and mammal remains from a Pleistocene peatbog near Cottbus.

Nehring not only studied the morphological, taxonomic, and phylogenetic relationships of the Pleistocene mammals but also treated some of the ecological problems involved. He wrote at length on these matters in Über Tundren und Steppen der Jetzh und Vorzeit (1890), after having already treated them in several shorter papers. Following a description of the tundra (arctic steppes) in northern Russia and Siberia, as well as of the steppes of southern Russia and southwest Siberia, and their characteristic mammals, Nehring showed that regions of tundra and steppe, with their corresponding fauna, had existed in the later Pleistocene in central and western Europe. This study, filled with numerous and exact data, is still among the most important foundations of the paleoecology and paleobiogeography of the later Pleistocene in central and western Europe. Nehring also was interested in the fossil remains of man and his implements, and he participated vigorously in the discussions on the Pithecanthropus erectus of Java at the end of the nineteenth century.

Nehring’s painstaking and thorough works still provide useful and much-employed data for research on Pleistocene mammals.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A nearly complete bibliography is in A. S. Romer, N. E. Wright, T. Edinger, and R. van Frank, Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates Exclusive of North America, 1509–1927, II, L-Z, Geological Society of America Memoir no. 87 (New York, 1962), 978–985. Nehring’s writings include “Länge und Lage der Schneide-zahnalveolen bei den wichtigsten Nagethieren,” in Zeitschrift für Naturwissenchaften, 45 (1875), 217–239; “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Diluvialfauna,” ibid., 47 (1876), 1–68; “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Diluvialfauna (Fortsetzung),” ibid., 48 (1876), 177–236; “Die quaternären Faunen von Thiede und Westeregeln nebst Spuren des vorgeschichtlichen Menschen,” in Archiv für Anthropologic, 10 (1878), 359–398; “Fortsetzung und Schluss,” ibid,, 11 (1879), 1–24; “Übersicht üiber vierundzwanzig mittel-curopaische Quärtarfaunen,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft, 32 (1880), 478–509; “Über die Abstammung unserer Hausthiere,” in Jahresberichte und Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschafilichen Vereins in Magdeburg for 1885–1886 (1886), 129–144; Über Tundren und Steppen der Jetzt- und Vorzeit, mit besonderer Beruck-sichtigung ihrer Faunen (Berlin, 1890); “Die geographische Verbreitung der Säugelhiere in dem Tschernosem-Gebietedes rechten Wolga-Ufers,” in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 26 (1891), 297–351; “Über einen Molar aus dem Diluvium von Taubach,” in Zeitschrift für Ethnologic, 27 (1895), 573–577; “Die kletneren Wirbeltiere aus dem Schweizersbild bei Schaflhausen,” in J. Nüesch et ai., “Das Schweizersbild, eine Niederlassung aus palaolithischer und neolithischer Zeit,” in Neue Denkschriften der Allgemeinen schweizerischen Gesellschaft für die gesamten Naturwissemchaften, 35 (1902), 159–198.

II. Secondary Literature. See the following, listed chronologically: J. V. Zelizko, “Alfred Nehring. Črta Životopisná,” in Pravěk, 2 (1904), 150–155, with portrait; E. Friedel, “Alfred Nehring als Erforscher unserer Heimat,” in Brandenburgia, 13 (1905), 289–301, with partial bibliography; and G. Tornier, “Rückblick auf Anatomic und Zoologie,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (1923), 12–71, see 43–44; and “Rückblick auf die Pälaontologie,” ibid. (1925), 72–106, titles of many of Nehring’s paleontological papers, 101–103.

Heinz Tobien