Johann Heinrich Blasius

Johann Heinrich Blasius (7 October 1809 – 26 May 1870) was a German zoologist. His son, August Wilhelm Heinrich Blasius (1845–1912), was an ornithologist.

In 1836, he was appointed as a professor at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. In 1840, he founded the Botanischer Garten der Technischen Universität Braunschweig. In 1859 he was appointed as the director of the newly founded Naturhistorisches Museum (Braunschweig) and in 1866 also of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum.

He was the author of two major books on vertebrates: "Fauna der Wirbelthiere Deutschlands" (1857), and "Die wirbelthiere Europa's" (Vertebrates of Europe, with Alexander Keyserling, 1840). He also wrote "Reise im Europäischen Russland in den Jahren 1840 und 1851" (Journey to European Russia in the years 1840 & 1851). In 1862 ornithologist Alfred Newton (1829-1907) published "A list of the birds of Europe", a translation based on Blasius' research.

Blasius was also an early contemporary critic of Darwin's Origin of Species:

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