Hans Lissmann
| Hans Lissmann | |
|---|---|
| Born |
30 April 1909 Mykolaiv, Ukraine, Russian Empire |
| Died | 21 April 1995 (aged 85) Cambridge, England |
| Alma mater | Hamburg |
| Occupation | Professor in Zoology (Cambridge) |
| Spouse(s) | Corinne Ceresole Foster-Barham |
| Children | 1s |
Hans Lissmann FRS (30 April 1909 – 21 April 1995) was a British zoologist of Ukrainian provenance, specialising in animal behaviour.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1954, following breakthrough research identifying the electric field generated by the African Knife fish (Gymnarchus), and the uses which the fish makes of it.
He was Reader, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, 1966–77, then Reader Emeritus, and Director, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, 1969–77.
Hans Werner Lissmann was born in Mykolaiv, Ukraine which was then part of Russia. As members of the ethnic German minority the family fell under suspicion when war broke out in 1914. Lissmann and his elder brother were sent into "internal exile" in Siberia, separated from their parents, Robert and Ebba Lissmann. At the end of the war they were permitted to return home, but by 1922 the family had relocated to Hamburg in Germany, which is where Lissmann received his school-level education.
At the end of the 1920s he moved on to study Biology at Hamburg University. Next he worked under Jakob von Uexküll at the Hamburg Institute for Environmental Research. He received his doctorate in 1932 for work on the Siamese fighting fish. In 1933 he was sent with a travel bursary to the Hungarian Scientific Academy's biological research station at Lake Balaton. While he was there Germany underwent significant régime change. Lissmann rejected a government requirement that he should disseminate Nazi propaganda and instead chose to relocate again. He made his was to India. Here he obtained a stipendium from the recently established Academic Assistance Council which enabled him to travel to Great Britain and to obtain, in 1934, a post in the Research Department of the Cambridge University Zoological Institute, headed up by James Gray. The focus of his research during his early Cambridge years was on the interplay between the movements sequencing, the sensory organs and the nervous systems of animals.
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